


From Dust 'till Dawn

by lantia4ever



Category: Deadpool (Movieverse), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Angst, BAMF Stephen Strange, Babysitting, Butterflies, Deadpool & Peter are friendly neighborhood besties, Fluff and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Insecurity, Kid Fic, Kid Peter Parker, M/M, Magic, No Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Steve Rogers Friendly, Not Wanda Friendly, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Stephen Strange, Protective Tony Stark, Silvermane - Freeform, Slow Burn, Stephen is Sorcerer Supreme, Swearing, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange parenting Peter Parker | Supremefamily | Strange Family, he's so obscure he doesn't even have a tag lol, no matter what that movie actually brings, post-Avengers: End Game, the rest of team!Cap is on thin ice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2019-09-24 10:59:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17099330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lantia4ever/pseuds/lantia4ever
Summary: !! ON HOLD UNTIL THE END OF IRONSTRANGE BIGBANG !! ^^Tony ends up taking care of Peter after the kid falls into a HYDRA trap and is somehow turned into a toddler. While both Deadpool and Fury go on a HYDRA hunting spree, Tony must protect the tiny spider from HYDRA's persistent attempts at getting to him...and deal with the two things he hates the most in this world - magic and Captain America's judging eyes of distrust and disappointment.Good thing they are surrounded by family that has their backs - plus one protective Sorcerer Supreme who makes it his mission to prove to the genius that magic isn't all evil.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again, my dear Ironstrangers! 
> 
> It's Christmas time, I'm hella sick for like the first time in ten years and hella pissed because all doctors I went to were ridiculously on holiday already (bless them, but I had to hysterically laugh after I just yolo'd it to the hospital, finding one door with a sign telling me to go to the next door...where it said to go back to the first door because they're on holiday, I mean... :'DDDD haven't felt so trolled since Rickrolling was a thing).
> 
> So here I am at 2AM, dosed on questionable and likely useless meds I diagnosed for myself while in pain and freaking out over the fact I now have zero chance to buy the rest of the presents I had planned to buy this week and that the universe must really hate me. All I wanted for this Christmas was apparently a doctor...
> 
> ...thus my hazy brain came to the conclusion the only doctor I'm ever gonna get without actually dying now that it's weekend and holiday time is in full blast, is of course my man Doctor Strange! So I'm posting this lil' prologue of the thing I've got in WIP for Ironstrange right now. Because what always cheers me up? No matter how sick, angry, depressed or just plain done I am with everything?
> 
> Angst, more angst, lot of Tony hurt and angst, lot of Supremefamily angst...oh and magic butterflies and puppies. Also, toddler Peter. Consider me cured, because the plans I have with this are all that and more than I could even tag.
> 
> Enjoy the read and let me know if this might be your cup of tea...or rather eggnog, spiked with angst and...tears and really bad Deadpool characterization. Uhm...anyway. MERRY CHRISTMAS Y'ALL! <3

Peter stares at the clock, counting the seconds ticking away. What he should be counting instead are the figures in this math problem the class is trying to solve, but Peter is a man on a mission.

A teen on a mission anyway. The moment 3PM strikes, he can bolt out of here and finally do some proper friendly neighborhood superheroing again.

It’s been months since…since Thanos was defeated and Peter would like to think that the world is back to normal again. Only it isn’t. Not even close.

They might have won – after they lost and died – but the aftermath of the war left the newly reformed Avengers in a pretty bad shape. Maybe not on the outside, no. On the inside is another story and they may all think he’s too young to see it and they would all be wrong.

Peter’s been there after all. He’s been there when the donut landed in Manhattan, he’s been there on Titan where _they_ were defeated, he’s been lost in the disturbing lands of the Soul world and he’s been there when Thanos was finally defeated on Earth, once and for all.

It was supposed to be the big happy ending, bad guys defeated and thanks to their very own gauntlet used by both Colonel Danvers and Mr. Stark _everyone_ lived – the ones taken by the Soul stone, that Gamora woman Mr. Starlord always talked about, even the Asgardians that Thanos massacred before ever coming to Earth.

Everyone lived – yet everyone is miserable about it.

Mr. Stark in particular is all sorts of _not okay_. Whenever Peter asks, he always smiles and waves the question away with _I’m okays_ and _Don’t worrys_.

And it makes Peter worry all the more every time it happens. Mr. Happy and Colonel Rhodes tried assuring him that they’re keeping an eye on him and everything’s fine, but he didn’t need his spidey senses to know how little confidence both of them had in their own words.

He’s been swinging by the Sanctum after school during his so called “grounded period” – which thankfully ends today – hoping he could get Doctor Wizard and Wong more engaged with the Avengers and the Guardians…and the Revengers, there’s way too many teams now.  

It didn’t really work.

Doctor Strange attends the weekly meetings at the Compound but never talks to anyone, just sits there and nods or briefly comments on the matter at hand and that freaks Peter out almost as much as Mr. Stark’s fake smiles.

He was hoping to get the Titan crew to socialize and maybe get some of the bad memories off their chest but it’s obviously not meant to be. Mr. Starlord and his crew is all over the place these days, Nebula…he’s still too scared to talk to her and Mr. Stark and Doctor Strange hadn’t even spoken to each other since Mr. Stark answered the Doctor’s “Are you okay?” with a sharp glare and walked away.

And here he thought they could be really good friends…adults are so weird and complicated, it’s infuriating!

Now that he thinks about it, he might be on two missions actually.

The bell rings and he’s all packed up and running for the door in seconds.

“Later, dude!” he waves at Ned before he disappears into the hallway and sprints toward the exit to evade the students pouring out of classes everywhere. “Phew!” he sighs once he reaches the parking lot down the stairs and heads for his bi…not-there bicycle. “What in the - !” he rushes to the bicycle stands, picking up the clearly ripped chainlock. “Oh come on!” he exclaims, throwing the chain on the pavement in disdain.

First order of the day – deal with neighborhood bike thieves.

“Ah! There you are!” a familiar voice calls from behind him, quickly followed by wheezing bike breaks and tires smearing on the concrete. “Maaan…thought you’d never come out of the madhouse. Couldn’t you ditch the last lesson or something? I was waiting here for hours! So boring…well, except for the cops I had to lose an hour ago. Turns out creeping around schools dressed like this was a bad idea after all. I borrowed your bike, hope you don’t mind.”

Peter just stares at him for ten extra seconds, before flailing his hands at him accusingly. “Dude! Deadpool! What… _why_?! You ripped the chain - and ran the tires down!” he laments the state of his beloved vehicle.

“I had to do some radical driving, it’s not easy to lose police cars in full chase mode with this tiny thing. Not to mention the saddle is too low and too small for me. Good God my balls are all kinds of disheveled now.”

“UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!” Peter groans and chains the bike back to the stand. “Let’s get out of here,” he rolls his eyes and shoots off around the corner so they don’t attract any attention from the crowds now pouring out of the school.

“Hey, it’s no biggie. Dopinder can give you a ride to school tomorrow, he owes me a favor anyway. And Cable can take care of the tires, he’s got a rubber fetish – you didn’t hear that from me though.”

“That’s okay, I think I’ll just take the bus and fix the bike between classes,” Peter retorts while stuffing his clothes into the backpack, letting the suit spread over him.

“Noooo, come on. It’s bad manners to refuse an offering…or so they tell me.”

“Your taxi driver freaks me out and Cable is…I don’t know. There’s something really off about him, so no thanks.”

Deadpool shrugs, stretching his arms. “Okie dokie, your loss.”

“Why are you even here? Please don’t tell me Mr. Stark sent you here to babysit me!”

“Yeah, as if anyone in their right mind would send _me_ to babysit their beloved son. Or anything really, from babies to hamsters. Nah. I’ve got some business downtown and wanted to make sure you leave out the area from your neat little patrol run.”

“What business? I can help!” Peter switches into mission mode just like that and webs the backpack behind some dumpsters.

“Uhhhhhh no. I don’t think so. It’s not exactly PG-rated you see and I’m not risking Stark finding out about it like he did before.”

“But…I told him it was an accident! It wasn’t _your_ fault the robbers decided to hide in a night club!”

“Me not stopping you from barging in there was apparently my fault. I tried arguing it was the bouncer’s job, but he didn’t buy it.”

“Do you at least have a back-up? If it’s something dangerous you should have a back-up, it’s all part of the new Avengers rules, you know?”

“Thank fuck I’m not an Avenger then.”

“ _One hundred dollars to the F-word fund, Mr. Wilson_ ,” Karen speaks out loud.

“Come on now, spider lady! I already have a full-time job, I can’t take part-times just to afford this bullshit F-fund of yours anymore! Shit, that’s another twenty. And a fifty, crap! ARGH!”

“ _Let’s just make that another hundred then, as a combo bonus_.”

“You savage little thing,” Deadpool glares at Peter’s chest where Karen’s voice is coming from and whips out his two guns. “And don’t worry about back-up. I’ve got these two babies fully loaded and – oh crap! I forgot the ammo bag at Al’s! Gotta run, kid. Have fun doing good deeds and whatnot, just stay away from this here place,” he gives him a crumpled piece of paper with a google maps print out and a building highlighted by an obnoxiously large red circle. “Later, Spidey!” he gives him a thumbs up and runs off.

“What a lunatic,” he breathes out and smiles. Deadpool is crazy on good days – and completely mental on bad days – but he’s one of the few people he knows that always keeps their cool. Even after Thanos, he’s just as crazy as _before_ Thanos and Peter can settle for a bit of continuity these days.

And he does enjoy his weird humor – ever since he proclaimed himself to be the new friendly Neighborpool, Peter knew they would be best of friends no matter how much the fact drove Mr. Stark crazy at one point.

“Patrol time!” he cheers and swings up and above the apartment buildings, scanning the streets for trouble.

 

 

Few hours later, it turns out there isn’t much to scan for. Either every bad guy got the memo and knows today is his official return to duty or he’s looking for them in all the wrong places. He still helps a granny with her scattered groceries down the street, tackles a fire-hydrant gone wild and searches for a lost Black Lab puppy along the way.

Just when he’s about to call it a day and head home, he spots the puppy in a construction site just two blocks away from where Peter first spotted the flyers.

“There you are, lil’ guy,” he approaches the seemingly happy pup carefully, trying not to scare it away. Looks like his daily patrol won’t be a waste after all. “Time to go home, yeah?” he picks it up, letting it lick at his facemask. “You a friendly fella, aren’t you?” he laughs and dials the phone number noted down on the flyer.

“Hello?” a smooth female voice answers.

“Hi! I’ve found your puppy, the uhm…Black Lab puppy? A white streak going down its chest?”

“ _Did you, now? Oh my, thank goodness! Could you bring it around to our house?_ ”

Peter notes down the address and takes the happily barking puppy on a swinging ride across three blocks, stopping by an apartment block that has definitely seen better days. It’s not the nicest part of town…but not the worst either at least in Peter’s experience.

He follows the lady’s instructions and comes inside the house without ringing the bell.

“Hello?” he calls out into the darkened flat, taking few hesitant steps towards the light coming out of the room in the back of the hall.

“Ah! You’ve really brought him back, awwww!” An elderly lady peeks out from behind the slightly ajar door. Come on in, I’m just finishing the tea over here!”

Peter chuckles, petting the lively puppy in his arms and walks into the kitchen.

It’s an all too innocent set-up – a puppy, a nice old lady, cozy house; innocent enough for Peter to completely disregard the familiar tingling sensation of his spidey senses ringing the alarm.

Until it’s too late.

Until he’s walking into a room full of shady looking characters with nothing but a handful of a cute puppy.

“Uh-oh,” is all he manages to utter before everyone snaps into action and the room erupts with movement.

   

* * *

 

 

Stephen snaps out of his meditation feeling like someone just slammed a brick into his face.

“Wong!” he calls out into the quiet of the Sanctum.

The last time he felt a magical presence this strong and sinister was when Loki sneaked onto Earth with Thor not even a year ago. That alone is enough to raise red flags in his head but it gets worse when he realizes the source of the alarm. It’s not just _any_ mystical disturbance. It’s a singular outburst and its target is someone that should not in any way, shape or form be targeted by any such force.

“Felt it too! I’ll protect the Sanctum!” he gets a reply coming from the downstairs library and Stephen sets into motion.

The Cloak slips around his shoulders and he’s creating a portal, following the traces of the magic within seconds.

The commotion in the messy kitchen he finds himself in comes to a halt and just like that, he’s facing twelve men in unlabeled black uniforms, all staring at him.

“Would you like some tea, dear?”

Scratch that. Twelve men and one pissed off granny that swings a kettle at him.

The Cloak deflects the assault and flies off to pacify the elder, leaving Stephen to deal with the ninja-wannabies.

Whether they recognized him or not, neither of them dared to make a move just yet so he takes the opportunity to quickly look around the room, searching for the familiar red and blue of the spider suit. And he finds it – disintegrating in the hands of the ninja leaning against the cupboards in the back.

“We’ve got ourselves a volunteer,” he whispers, his voice reaching the dangerous deep octave.

Before they can so much as blink, he throws the _volunteer_ into the mirror dimension and with shields up turns to the now scattering men. He focuses on the four trying to flee through the door, tripping them with a few magical chains that split up to bind them all afterwards.

Some managed to escape through the windows in the meantime, but he still gets the four slowest ones and has them trapped in chains against the wall.

While the men struggle in the binds, he checks on the Cloak, now in the living room hovering over the disturbingly gurgling granny.

“What did you do?!” he switches into doctor mode and jumps to the sofa to check on her.

It’s no use. She’s dead before he can check her pulse, white foam streaming down her chin.

Poison.

“Oh no, nonono,” he mumbles but by the time he makes it back to the kitchen, the men caught in his chains are already dead and dying as well.

He remembers whose modus operandi that is from the countless Avengers reports he read since cooperating with the team.

HYDRA.

“Dammit,” he curses and pulls the agent from the mirror dimension – also dead as expected. So much for saving the best for last and interrogating him about what happened here.

A strangled, animalistic whine startles him from his thoughts.

The Cloak settles back on his shoulders when he zeroes his gaze on the partly open cupboard that agent was leaning against before.

“Peter?” he calls out, taking a few cautious steps towards it.

The cupboard doors burst open and Stephen finds himself attacked for the second time this evening – by an energetic, jumping puppy.

“Wh – oh. Okay. Stop. Cloak? A little help here?”

The Cloak reluctantly entertains the lively but otherwise completely harmless pup and Stephen wants to go back to search and rescue but as his gaze returns to the now opened cupboard, he freezes.

No need for search and rescue. Bundled up in the nanite-y mess that remains of the Spiderman suit is…a toddler, watching Stephen with sleepy eyes.

Quite familiar eyes.

“ _Peter_?!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone & Merry Christmas! <3
> 
> Thank you all for your lovely feedback and in the holiday spirit, here's the next chapter! \o/ 'Cause I love me some IronStrange for Xmas! ^^

“Let me get this straight,” Tony takes a calming breath and continues to stare at the kid, peacefully sleeping on the sofa in the Sanctum’s foyer, wrapped in Strange’s magic cape. “You felt a disturbance in the Force, busted a HYDRA house party and found Peter like _this_?!”

“Don’t forget the puppy,” Strange nods, pointing at the other sleeping occupant of the sofa, nestled against the kid.

“Why of course! The _puppy_!” he flails, trying to keep his voice down.

“How did HYDRA slip through our surveillance?” Rogers asks, also staring at the sleeping duo.

Tony rolls his eyes. “Because it’s not _our_ surveillance, it’s _Fury’s_ surveillance. And we all know how that worked out in the past.”

“New York is a big city, I’m sure a couple agents could slip past SHIELD and evade all our informants,” Natasha comments, standing just next to the door, not at all keen on entering the Sanctum any further.

Understandable. This place is totally freaky. Magic…magic everywhere! It’s like his personal nightmare house. If it wasn’t for Peter being at the center of this whole mess, he would have never come here.

“Fury is trying to track down the escapees, until then…can someone explain to me how a teenager turns into a babbling one year old after a little encounter with HYDRA?” Tony asks, a few equally terrifying theories flashing through his head.

“Magic,” Strange states, returning Tony’s blank stare.

“Ooooookay. Anyone else? Something plausible this time perhaps?”

“It was magic,” Strange repeats, annoyance oozing in spades from him this time. “I placed a protective spell on Peter’s suit, that’s what really alerted me in the first place. It wouldn’t trigger unless someone tried using magic on him.”

“Whoa now! Hold on, Dumbledore. Are you saying someone used magic on the kid and your protective spell did _that_? Turned him into a ki…a _smaller kid_?!”

“No, dumbass!” Strange rolls his eyes, glaring at him. “That must have been the purpose of whatever spell _they_ used on him.”

“Which is disconcerting,” Wong says, frowning in Strange’s direction. “Means whoever cast that spell broke through your protective one.”

“So?” Rogers asks, giving Strange an inquisitive once-over.

“So he must be stronger than - ”

“I wouldn’t necessarily say _stronger_ , just…more experienced. With this area of the Mystic arts at least,” Strange interrupts his magical partner in crime, narrowing his eyes at the kid. “It was supposed to protect him from destructive, harmful spells. Can’t say I was expecting…this,” he waves at the sleeping bundle.

“No shit.”

“Tony! There’s a baby here!” Rogers send him his wide-eyed offended look.

“He’s asleep! Geez, give it a break, Rogers. It’s just a word. A thirty dollar one if I’m not mistaken. Let’s up the ante in the F-fund, FRIDAY,” he instructs his AI.

“ _Sounds reasonable, boss_. _I am tripling the penalties for all words included on the list_.”

“Perfect. Thank you.”

“As if a hundred bucks is going to teach _you_ a lesson about using profanities in front of children,” Rogers comments.

“Unlike _some_ people, I can very well contain myself, thank you very much. The F-fund was set up specially for Wade.”

“Motherfucker! I knew it!”

“Speak of the devil,” Tony smirks, enjoying Rogers’s intensified murder face now turned to Wade, descending the stairs from somewhere upstairs.

“ _That will be six hundred dollars now, Mr. Wilson_.”

“Shut up, Saturday. I’m here on business. And I refuse to pay anything until I get the new list of penalties overview printed and ready to be signed!”

“Fair enough. What did you find out?” Tony lets it slide this time, too anxious to know the results of Wade’s own little investigation.

“I’m sorry, but where the hell did you just come from?” Strange intervenes, his glare flicking between Wade and the ceiling.

“Whachu mean, Sherlock? I’ve been reading some book about chakras in the library the whole time. Cool read, but the book smells funny. Where do you store them, in the sewage?”

“That book’s in Sanskrit.”

“And your point is…? Fine! I was just looking at the naughty pictures, you got me. Now, where were we? Right! HYDRA. My favorite pet animal right after drug cartels. Turns out that the weapon dealers I had a _friendly_ meeting with this afternoon closed a deal with a certain Mr. Smith last week. Mr. Smith was just a middle-man for another guy, Bob, who was really in the market for some peonies. For his wife. Miss Bob. But she told me that’s just their code name for grenades…I mean, whatever rocks their boat, amirite? It also turns out Miss Bob was a ninety-year old dude, a school bus driver by day and a proxy on HYDRA’s payroll at night. DUN DUN DUUUUN! Plot twist!”

“Wade!” Tony facepalms, trying to keep up with Wade’s unlikely story.

“I’m getting there! Miss Bob hooked me up with the HYDRA grenadier wannabie uhm… _Johnny_ …and we met on top of the Statue of Liberty. Guy told me everything.”

“HYDRA is targeting Spiderman as part of their new lil’ project,” Fury steals the continuation of the story from Wade, also descending the stairs.

“What in th…there’s a door right here,” Strange waves at the front doors. “I’m putting the defenses back up, don’t come complaining if you end up in another dimension the next time you try sneaking through the windows. Better yet, there is going to be no next time. No more Avenger meetings in the Sanctum!”

“Damn. Was that what I stumbled into last month? Another dimension? Jesus Christ, wizard, I looked like something out of a lovecraft movie in there!” Wade shudders and turns to Fury. “And you, stop stealing my intel, kitty cat!”

“ _What_ did you just call him?” Natasha raises a curious eyebrow at Wade.

“Hey, ain’t my fault his superhero name is Furry. I’m just going with it, alright?”

Tony stifles a chuckle, evading Fury’s death glare. Wade is a menace and a bad influence – on everyone – but he can’t but like the guy anyway. If nothing else, Wade really does care about Peter, no less than a big brother would. A really weird and troubled big brother.

“Ain’t stealing nothin’, Mr. Wilson. We followed our own leads. Looks like Mr. Parker entered that house after looking for and finding the puppy over there, answering a flyer posted around town today.”

“HYDRA banked this entire plan on Peter finding one puppy in the middle of New York?” Tony frowns. HYDRA might not be known for their high collective IQs, but that plan is stupid even for them.

“Or just any tiny black puppy. There were over forty Black Labs found on the streets of the city today alone, according to the shelter they all ended up in.”

Okay, so not that stupid after all. Just HYDRA being HYDRA as usual, heartless enough to set dozens of puppies free around town to up their chances to catch the most definitely not heartless neighborhood superhero.

He’s going to hunt them all down one by one and -

“Sons of bitches!” Wade curses, whipping out his flip-phone, typing something frantically on it.

“Chees!”

The excited shriek startles everyone, turning all heads to the sofa where Peter is very much awake, watching them with huge eyes and a beaming smile.

Tony slaps Wade’s arm, pointing a warning finger at him. “The F-fund is officially in effect now, Wilson, no more excuses.”

“You’re on, grandpa. But I don’t plan on staying around to curse myself into losing my kid’s college funds. Little Adolf deserves to grow up knowing his future education is a given!”

“Adolf?!” Tony shakes his head in disbelief.

“It’s a work-in-progress name…just like the baby is still in-progress, you know? Anyway, unlike kitty cat over here, I have some more leads to follow and won’t rest until I dismantle the entire HYDRA splinter cell that thought it was a good idea to attack the friendly protector of the hood! I’ll keep in touch, Steelngoldalloy man,” he salutes Tony and walks to the doors.

“Now would be a good time to actually join the team, Mr. Wilson…considering you’re putting yourself on an official Avenger’s business,” Fury stops his retreat.

“Nah uh! It’s not Avengers business, it’s _my_ business.”

“ _Your_ business is raising a lotta eyebrows in the UN these days…you wanna tell me about that warehouse full of decapitated bodies we found today and the big splat of _Johnny_ underneath the Statue of Liberty?”

“The dude slipped on one of them crown spikes, it was an accident! And I was in no warehouse today…unless you’ve got proof. I’m not the only katana-wielding anti-hero around here, okay?”

Fury just pulls out a crumpled map with a building highlighted in the middle of it.

“Okay, fine!” Wade snatches it away, crumpling it into a ball and throwing it into the Cauldron of Cosmos. “Yiss! That was a three-pointer right there! Alright, I was in the warehouse but I swear they all decapitated themselves…on their own katanas!”

“Uhuh.”

“Look. I already refused one bald guy’s invitation to his merry band of heroes and you might be all cool with your eye-patch and coat…I mean all he had was a wheelchair so there’s no competition there. The wheelchair was super fun to ride around with on full speed, so you lose and I’m not joining your team either! I’ve got my own team now. Half of it might be dead due to unforeseen circumstances…but it’s still a team! You tell the UN or whoever to contact our PR manager, Al. She will handle it.”

Fury closes his eye and lets Wade sneak around him and out of the doors.

“Haaadleet,” Peter tries to mimic Wade – again – and laughs.

“Anyway,” Fury turns his attention back to them. “Until this threat is dealt with, Mr. Parker is in danger, especially in his current…condition,” he flails his hand in the direction of the laughing toddler. “Good news is, HYDRA doesn’t seem to know his identity – yet – so his family and friends should be safe for now. Bad news is, we’re going to have to take care of the kid 24/7. And by _we_ I really just mean _you_ ,” he smirks at Tony.

“Say what?!”

“That’s probably not a good idea,” Rogers nods.

“Aunt May _may_ be badass, but she ain’t in the HYDRA ass-kicking stage. And since you’re his emergency contact and arguably the mos - ”

“Oh my God, May! She actually might just get to that stage when I tell her all about this,” Tony mutters, his brain in the middle of devising the scenario when Rogers’s little comment catches up with him. “Hold on…what did you just say?” he narrows his eyes at him. “You think I can’t protect the kid?!”

“I don’t doubt th - ”

“That’s what you just said though.”

“ _Protecting_ and _taking care of_ are two different things, Tony,” Rogers explains, his patience clearly running out. “And you ca…never mind.”

“No, do go on. Say it,” he folds his arms, fully glaring at Rogers now.

“You can’t even take care of yourself, let alone a baby,” Rogers reluctantly finishes the thought.

“As I was saying,” Fury steps in before Tony decides to do something stupid – yet completely warranted…like kick Rogers in the shin or spit in his morning coffee. “Mr. Parker listed you as his emergency contact and by extension his emergency everything. So you’re on babysitting duty until HYDRA is dealt with and Mr. Parker returned to his proper age.”

“I shall look into that…find a counter-spell or a remedy,” Strange offers.

“There, it’s settled then.”

Tony would argue that despite Peter’s wishes, it would probably be for the best to entrust the kid into more capable hands. When it comes to babies, he has absolutely zero experience unlike someone _all too experienced_ …such as Clint or that smaller-bigger guy he always forgets the name of. Neither of which he would trust Peter to, but that’s beside the point.

Since Rogers decided to put his ever-growing doubt into that one simple sentence he sputtered a moment ago, Tony will _not_ argue. He created new elements, learnt astrophysics in one evening and survived a moon shot to the face – he can definitely handle a baby. Maybe not yet, but he expects to be an expert in baby care-taking theory by morning.

“You take care of HYDRA, I’ll take care of Peter,” Tony decides, earning a court nod from Mr. Kitty-cat. He’s so going to use that now.

“I’ll set up a meeting for tomorrow,” Fury tells them, his expression falling into his default resting bitchface, and leaves.

Natasha and the still weary Rogers bid a quick goodbye to the wizards and follow Fury’s example, heading back to their own car.

Tony turns to Peter, who apparently decided the adults were too boring and instead entertains himself with the sentient cape he’s still draped in. “Okay. Clothes. We can’t have you wear the flying carpet all day long. FRIDAY?”

“It’s a Cloak!” Strange tries arguing, but it’s drowned in FRIDAY’S quick reply.

“ _One step ahead of you, boss. I took the liberty of ordering clothes, baby food, diapers and other hygienic products – all on its way to the Compound as we speak. I’ve also made a selection of toys and a proper toddler bed that you might want to check and confirm_.”

“Huh. Look who’s all grown up now, did someone use an aging spell on you, too?” Tony quips at the AI, unable to contain the proud smile though.

“ _Karen was a big help with personalizing all the items to Mr. Parker’s preferences_.”

“Good job, girls. Now…,” he walks up to the sofa, looking between Peter and the puppy. “Funny how Fury didn’t say anything about the dog. Great. Looking at you two, you seem like cat persons,” he glances at Wong and Strange, who actually scoffs at that. “All wizards must be cat persons,” he mumbles and glances at the so very inviting exit.

He needs to get out of here. Lesser time spent in this house of horrors with Strange standing there all casual and shit, the better.

“Hey, kiddo. Let’s go home and catch a few z’s, yeah?” he talks to Peter, moving in to pick him up, but the damn red carpet slaps his hands away – making Peter all but choke on laughter. “Can you tell your fancy cape to fu…to _kindly_ leave me alone and get back to where it belongs?” he glares at the clearly amused Strange.

“Continue calling it a cape and a carpet and it won’t matter what I tell it to do or not,” Strange holds the glare without a blink for a moment, before outstretching his hand towards the sofa. “Come on, baby-sitting’s over.”

Instead of just unwrapping itself from the kid and going back to Strange, the cape just picks itself up along with Peter and flies towards the wizard to the mad cheering of the kid.

“Really?!” Tony folds his arms over his chest, watching Strange take the kid into his gloved hands, while the cape returns to his shoulders. “If your cape wants to score number one on my sh…my naughty list, then tell it it’s doing a great job so far.”

“Again,” Strange sighs, frowning at Peter as he holds him awkwardly in front of himself. “It’s not a cape, it’s a Cloak.”

“Cok,” Peter tries repeating after him, giggling at their collective stunned expressions.

“Uhhhh, no. No, Peter,” Strange actually goes a few shades of red much to Wong’s amusement. “Cloak,” he repeats, spelling it out slowly.

“Coke.”

“Good enough.”

Then, instead of handing Peter over to Tony directly, he walks back to the sofa and places him next to the stirring puppy, unknowingly solving Tony’s growing inner dilemma. Not liking being handed things definitely extends to being handed people…babies, animals or other cute things. Even if it’s just Peter, Tony almost managed to freak out over the thought just then.

With a swift wave of his hand, Strange conjures up a gray T-shirt and with another wave he neatly wraps the kid into it. “Do take the dog as well, can’t have that running around the Sanctum,” Strange instructs him without even sparing him a look and apparently considering their encounter done, he heads for the stairs.

“Gee, thanks for the help, oh mighty protector of this dimension. Worry thy self no more, for no canines shall run around this haunted mansion…even the hounds of hell don’t deserve such fate,” Tony can’t help but retort dramatically as he picks up Peter, nestling him against his chest in one hand and taking the puppy with the other.

“ _Thank you,_ Doctor Strange,” the wizard snaps, whirling around to face Tony again. “For saving the kid’s life and preventing HYDRA’s slimy heads from taking him and doing who knows what to him,” he continues. “No problem, anytime, Mr. Stark. Few words of praise do go a long way,” he answers himself sarcastically, rolling his eyes and not even bothering to ascend the stairs, he just disappears into a portal.

Okay. He might have gone a bit easier on the damn wizard. Especially since he’s right – he _did_ save Peter from HYDRA’s slimy heads and hands today. Welp. Another day, another night feeling like shit.

Perfect.

Wong gives him a stink eye and shows him out of the Sanctum without a word. Then again, _his_ resting bitchface speaks volumes on its own. Him and Fury must be best of friends now.

Tony reaches the car in few long strides, getting in without commenting on Happy’s WTF expression. “The Compound, stat. It’s past someone’s bedtime here.”

“You mean the baby or you? Could be both,” Happy replies, closing the door behind Tony and walking around the car to sit into the driver’s seat.

“I meant the puppy, now stop the sass and drive. _Please_. This is gonna be a long night,” he closes his eyes and places the still happy puppy next to him. He pulls out his phone, dialing aunt May with a heavy sigh.

“I hate to break this to you, but I can’t drive anywhere without the kid being strapped in a proper car seat.”

“Crap! You’re right. FRIDAY?”

“ _You should start sponsoring Costco, boss. They definitely stay open this long and have a courier ready just for you alone_.”

“I doubt I’m the only person ordering weird stuff in the middle of the night.”

“ _True. Oh and that there was sixty dollars to the F-fund, by the way_.”

“Ughhhhh. So it begins,” he huffs, watching Peter curiously tap his tiny fingers against the arc reactor.

“ _Tony? Is Peter with you?_ ” May answers the call.

“Yeah, uhm. He’s with me and he’s fine, don’t worry but…you might still wanna sit down.”

So it begins, indeed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Lil' Peter settles into his new home :3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! ^^ Let's get 2019 started with some more IronStrange! <3 (yeah, I know, it's like middle of January already but hey...some of us still waking up after the New Year's rave xD) Time to unfold the angst! And the cutie cuteness that is lil' Peter! 
> 
> Enjoy! <3

“Oh May, he’s adorable!” Pepper coos at Peter, who’s peacefully resting on May’s lap, munching on a bagel.

Tony watches the scene from the opposite sofa, hiding his smile in the billionth coffee of the day. By the time they arrived to the Compound last night, Peter was dead tired and fell asleep the moment he was tucked in the comfy looking bed. So Tony brewed as much coffee as he could fit in the kettle – making a note to upgrade it to a _much bigger_ kettle later – and dived into a parental speed course he never imagined he’d need.

Turns out parenting could easily be a science on its own as well. There’s a lot more to it than it seems and it’s not like he had the greatest example of how parenting should work while he was growing up. Well, he had Jarvis and the man certainly didn’t need the five-hundred pages manual nor the hours of video tutorials Tony went through. Jarvis was a natural at it, that much is now very clear to Tony.

“He’s exactly how I remember him. It’s so, _so_ weird,” May answers, looking at Peter with a mixture of awe and confusion.

“Are you sure he doesn’t remember anything?” Pepper asks him.

“Pretty sure. From what we observed so far, he’s behaving like any other toddler would, not a hint of suspiciously adolescent memories or anything.”

“Good,” she nods. “I mean…that would be…”

“Super weird, yep,” Tony agrees, spotting Rhodey emerging from the kitchen with Bruce in toe, carrying a fresh batch of coffee. “Have I told you how much I love you?” he only half-jokes when his science bro replenishes his nearly empty cup.

“Yes, twice just this morning, Tony,” Bruce shakes his head, sitting next to Rhodey and him.

“Say what? And no love for me? I brought food!” Rhodey pouts, shoving a plate full of toasts his way.

“Tsk tsk, Platypus. You know my opinion on solid food.”

“And you know my opinion on your opinion on solid food. So shut it and eat up, Stank!”

“Tank!” Peter giggles, pointing at Tony.

“Great. Thanks for that, my dear former best friend. Now the kid’s gonna keep calling me that. It’s no joke!” Tony glares at the snickering adults. “Kids this age keep repeating everything and tend to reuse it while learning to speak!”

Bruce frowns, sending the babbling Peter a curious look. “Huh. I didn’t know that.”

“That’s because you don’t have a degree in it,” Tony shoots back with a smirk, reluctantly grabbing one toast if only to make Rhodey stop poking him with the plate.

“Heeeey. I’m more than my degrees,” Bruce quips back. “But yeah, I could go on for hours about chemical compounds…kid stuff, not so much.”

“Don’t worry, I studied up enough for both of us. Time to now put it all into practice while also reinforcing the Compound’s security measures and making sure HYDRA is not getting to the kid, _ever_ ,” Tony quickly changes the subject, knowing it’s a sore topic for Bruce, no matter how many times he confessed he’s come to terms with knowing he’s never going to have kids of his own.

It’s a shame, really. Bruce would make a great dad with all his superior cuddliness, not to mention his divine cooking and endless patience. The Hulk would add bonus points towards coolness, too. And a sure deterrent for all possible bullies – who would dare mess with the Hulk’s kid, right? The green guy is a softie at heart anyway and would probably be as great with kids as Brucie-bear.

“I called the school so as far as they’re concerned, he’s come down with the flu. Won’t fool them for long though,” May says, worry lacing the words.

“Hopefully it won’t have to. Deadpool is already on the hunt for the ones responsible and the wizards are finding a way to reverse the spell.”

“You mean Doctor Strange and Wong? Peter talks about them a lot,” she adds, when all Tony answers with is a frozen silence. “Doctor Wizard and his cool magic tricks are his favorite topic lately.”

“That so?” Tony blurts out, chewing on the toast to distract himself – from everything magic related, really. Although it does tend to center on Strange after Ti – nope. Now is definitely not the time to go down memory lane and end up panicking in the middle of a room full of his friends and his kid-ified s…protégé.

“Yes…I was a bit wary about him so often visiting that…what do they call the place? Sanctum? Peter calls it Hogwarts.”

“Of course he does,” Tony chuckles.

“Okwalts!” Peter joins in again, bagel crumbs flying everywhere as he flails his hands around

“But just talking about his visits I could tell how…happy it made him. He’s always so cheerful when he comes back from there, just like when he returns from his “internship” here. He was in so much awe the first time you let him into the lab he almost didn’t sleep because of all the excitement. And after the gloomy weeks following the war…let’s just say anything that manages to cheer him up like that has my seal of approval,” May smiles, ruffling Peter’s thin hair.

Tony noticed as well.

Peter doesn’t talk to him about his visits to the Sanctum – not after the first time he tried talking to him about it and was nearly shouted at as a result – but Tony knows about them. He also knows Peter loves magic and everything about it – which includes Strange, his freaky cape and even freakier companion.

He figured as much on the donut ship. Peter’s wide-eyed curious looks and never-ending questions aimed at the more than annoyed wizard were a dead giveaway. So who is Tony to question Peter’s choice of after-school activities? If he wants to go to Hogwarts, then by all means…

If nothing else, May is right about the visits cheering him up – a lot. So much Tony could at one point tell exactly when he’s been there. The usually lively teen was rather silent and definitely gloomy after his return from the Soul world and it took weeks for him to start going back to normal.

And the visits to the Sanctum, Lego engineering with Ned and chimichanga Tuesdays with Deadpool played a big role in that.

So Tony just hums, nibbling some more on the toast. It makes his stomach twist and turn though.

“Anyway, we can fool the school but we can’t fool Ned,” May continues. “He texted me the second Peter didn’t show up at school and try telling him the flu story, he won’t buy it.”

“Tell him the truth then – that it’s a cover story,” Tony adds when May goes a little pale at that. “Tell him Peter is here for an emergency supersecret project for his internship…or something. Which is only half a lie, really.”

“That _might_ actually work if they weren’t phone obsessed teenagers. He will call and he will text and he will storm the Compound if Peter doesn’t reply at all.”

Tony nods, going through their options here. There really is only one _person_ that knows Peter enough to believably fake some texts to Peter’s best friend ever. “Karen will handle that.”

“Of course…a weird spider AI will handle it,” May sighs, shaking her head. “Alright, playtime with aunt May is over for now Petey,” she cuddles Peter, making him heave with laughter. “I’ll come by whenever I can.”

She stands up and places the happy toddler on the colorful roadmap carpet, where Peter instantly goes back to playing with a whole ensemble of Avengers action figures.

“Don’t worry ‘bout him. He’s got us all watching out for him,” Rhodey assures her.

“Exactly, he’s got an entire extended family of uncles and aunts over here,” Pepper agrees.

May smiles, watching Peter play for a moment. “Thank you. He’s lucky to have you all.”

“ _We_ are all lucky to have him,” Tony finds himself saying. “I mean, he keeps us old-timers on our feet…and in touch with the modern world full of memes and stuff.”

May chuckles, turning to leave. “Tell me about it. Told my colleague to yeet the angry letter he received into space and took me a minute to realize I’m probably the only person there who knows what that word means. Might be obvious, but the looks I was getting…unbelievable.”

They laugh and May bids them goodbye, Pepper getting up to see her out of the Compound.

“So…what are they up to?” Tony turns to Rhodey and Bruce once the doors are closed, his interest shifting to the Avengers morning meeting.

“Not much,” Bruce sighs. “Fury doesn’t have anything solid yet and until then, the Avengers are grounded.”

“Great. So the only ones actually doing anything are Fury’s spies – and I bet you all my billions that half of them are HYDRA anyway, and X-Force.”

“X-what?” Rhodey frowns.

“Deadpool’s team. Don’t even ask. It’s basically just him, a woman who’s superpower is luck, homicidal taxi-driver, an explosive mutant kid and some Thanos lookin-ass dude with a metal hand from the future.”

“You serious?” Bruce asks, confused.

“Yep. Knowing Deadpool though, he will have more results by the end of the day than Fury will have by the end of the week so…yeah.”

Bruce shakes his head. “No, I meant…Thanos lookin-ass dude?”

“Ugh. Don’t get me started on that. It’s like Thanos had a ‘tiny’ human twin brother… _in the future_. Peter calls him Thinos and makes fun of him all the time. Better to make fun of him than freak out about it, you know? I totally agree with that strategy.”

“Speaking of Thanos…,” Rhodey starts.

“Yeah, how about no,” Tony stops him right there and then, _yeeting_ half of his uneaten toast back onto the plate.

“Tony. We talked about this.”

“Exactly. We did and now we can never ever talk about it again, Rhodey. I’m cool with that.”

“Well I’m not, because I care. About you. You asshole.”

Tony groans, glaring at him. “Can we not do interventions in front of the kid, please? And that was big bucks word right there, pay up.”

“You’re lucky I’m not setting up the BS-fund, Stank! You would be penniless in a week.”

“Look, Tony…I get it, okay? Talking about stuff? We’re bad at it,” Bruce sighs, getting up.

“Oh I talked about stuff with you, remember? Probably not since you snoozed through it,” he pouts.

“I’m bad at listening on top of talking, what can I say…my point is, you need to talk to someone, _anyone_ , or you will go crazy. I sure almost did.”

“And now? You talking to someone? And you, hm?” he looks between them.

“Yes, actually,” Bruce folds his arms, staring down at Tony. “Hulk is pretty talkative lately and turns out Valkyrie understands a lot of the crap I’ve been through so…don’t even. Me _and_ Hulk both appreciate this newly found peace, especially after our little trip to space, then coming back home to another battlefield, Thanos and now this.”

“Now? What do you mean now?”

“Now I’m living under the same roof with a woman that betrayed my trust and another woman that messed around with my head and made me attack a city full of civilians,” Bruce cringes, running a hand over his face. “It’s not exactly my idea of a peaceful environment.”

“So…that’s why you’re running off to New Asgard all the time,” Tony realizes, his friend’s seldom presence in the Compound making so much more sense now.

Guess he’s not the greatest listener either. He’s so deep down his own dark thoughts all day long that his aging brain couldn’t even put two and two together.

“And if you had a single fiber of self-preservation in your body, Tones, you wouldn’t be holed up in here 24/7 either,” Rhodey nudges him with his elbow and deposits the plate onto Tony’s lap.

“I’m not,” Tony protests, ignoring the toast now taunting him from the plate.

Rhodey gets up, stretching his arms. “The only time you leave the Compound is for emergencies. Like yesterday. It literally takes bad guys causing trouble or something happening to the kid to get you outta here.”

He can’t argue with that – mostly because it’s true.

There’s something about the safety of his little corner of the Compound that he prefers as opposed to…anything outside of it. And nobody needs to know it’s because he’s spent months drifting in the cold, darkness of space with only Nebula to keep him some company. Just as well nobody needs to know food burns on the tip of his tongue ever since he slowly starved on that ship.

“One step at a time, Platypus. Before we deal with HYDRA and get Peter back to normal, I don’t have time to deal with _me_ problems.”

The sigh he receives from both of them in reply is answer enough to what they think about it.

“Just take it easy – easier, at least. I’ll let you know if Fury cooks something up with the Avengers so just sit back, teach Peter some new fun words and let us handle the rest, yeah?” Rhodey pats his shoulder and after a round of byes with Peter, him and Bruce go back to their day, leaving Tony alone for the rest of the afternoon.

He spends it half playing with Peter, half working on the StarkPad with FRIDAY going through every bit of the security code they’ve got set up in the Compound.

In the end, he crashes back onto the sofa after finding at least three new loopholes in the system and fears he’s going to have to spend some quality time in the lab tonight.

“We’re back!”

Tony looks up, watching a disheveled Happy enter the living room with the puppy running right past him.

“Pap!” Peter flails his tiny hands in the direction of the speeding puppy and lets himself be all but tackled down onto the carpet by it. Judging by his unstoppable giggles, he doesn’t mind the assault.

Happy discards the dog leash onto an empty armchair and stares at Tony. “So. Is this just a continuation of the downward spiral of my demotion from bodyguard to…a nanny? A dog-sitter? What am I now, exactly?”

“You’re my head of security!” Tony protests, hand sprawled over his chest. “The Compound cannot be safe if there is a wild puppy pooping and peeing at every corner, you’re a hero!” he exclaims and it’s not even as sarcastic as he planned it to be. “ _And_ the only person I trust to drive my cars – with me in them.”

Happy deflates a little at that, the annoyed scowl easing into his resting _mmmm’kay_ face. “How about handing you things?” He smirks, offering him his StarkPad.

He can’t stop the cringe from momentarily settling over his face and he does hesitate long enough for most people to usually give up – but he grabs the tablet in the end and returns the smirk. “What you got for me?” he steers the discussion away from his one of many weaknesses and brings up the menu on the screen.

“Deadpool wants to report about his…hunting trip.”

“Ah-ha!” Tony beams and calls Deadpool, eyes flicking over to Peter just to check if he’s still immersed in playing with the puppy. “It needs a name,” he mumbles, eyes lingering on the dog.

“The hunting trip? That’s what I call it – Wade specifically refers to it as The Great Purge.”

“Wh – what the actual fuck?! Anyway! I meant the dog…not Wade’s hunting disco party.”

“Oh yeah, that too.”

“ _Hey guys, how’s the babysitting goin’_?” Deadpool all but comes out of the screen as he accepts the video call. “ _You better be taking good care of my tiny dude, feed him, play with him, walk him in the park, you know – all the good stuff_.”

“He’s not a dog, Wade!” Tony sighs.

“ _But I meant the dog! I have no doubt you’re spoiling your spider son rotten already, so no worries there but when it comes to dogs, I still can’t really pin you down. You have a very cat-ish mannerism_.”

“Kat…tyyy!” Peter joins in the chat, somehow teleporting from the play mat to the sofa, attempting to climb up next to Tony.

“Yes, thanks, Dr. Phil,” Tony dismisses Wade, trying hard not to let the ‘spider son’ comment get to him. He helps Peter up, seating him into the comfy pillows in the corner and returns his attention to the screen. “How’s the hunting going? You better be kicking names and taking ass.”

“ _Now that’s_ exactly _what I’m doing. At least the kicking names bit, Cable is the expert when it comes to taking ass. Him and his great grandpa Thanos have that in common I guess_.”

“ _I will blow your fucking balls off, don’t test me_!” Cable shouts from somewhere behind Deadpool’s head – still the only thing visible on the screen.

“Fukin’baaall’unf!” Peter repeats, now very much interested in the tablet.

“ _Awww! That’s so cute_!” Wade sighs while Tony’s in the middle of compiling a list of ways he could murder the Winter Thanos dude. “ _Haven’t gone through puberty in a while, could be fun, Cabee! But first, we’re going to Canada_.”

Tony takes a calming breath and pressure on. “What’s in Canada?”

“ _You mean other than the two greatest singers of all time, Justin Bieber and Celine Dion?! A HYDRA cell operating undercover within the music industry…which probably explains a lot now that I think about it. Anyway! We’re heading over there to catch up and see what songs they’ve got to sing_.”

“Good…great. You do that. Let me know the lyrics when you’re done.”

“ _Oh you got it, fancy trash can man! Bye Peter~_!” he waves and cuts the feed off.

“Canman!” Peter flails giggling along with one very amused Happy.

“How do you kill a man that can re-grow and reanimate every last bit of his body?” Tony asks, glaring at his former bodyguard.

“Oh please. You like the guy. You hate that you like him, but you do.”

“Uhuh. If you say so,” he grumbles.

“You have this very special category reserved for people you hate to like. You know, Deadpool, Agent Coulson, that wizard dude and his fancy cape – both.”

“Honestly, I was kidding about the Dr. Phil bit but now I’m not sure if it was a joke anymore. First Wade, now you…and by the way, this very special category belongs to the people I love to hate so you’ve got it all wrong.”

Happy’s face morphs into what Tony’s learnt to recognize over the year as his _I ain’t buying any of your bullshit_ face. “Yeah, I don’t think so. You need anything else before I go?”

Date with Pepper. Right. Funny how he’s so good at remembering a date with Pepper when he’s not the one attending it anymore.

“Yes. I need you to go. As in leave fast before you go bald and really turn into Dr. Phil. That’s the last thing the kid needs to see. Off you go, chop chop.”

“Morning bright and early, boss,” he nods and gets up to leave, making the puppy hop down the sofa and run excited circles around him. “You too, no-name-pup. Kid,” he winks and Peter.

“Bah!” Peter waves at him in return.

“Yes, say bye to weird uncle Hogan,” Tony snickers, watching the chuckling man retreat from the living room. “So…,” he looks around, finding himself in the sole company of a one-year-old and a bouncing all too lively puppy. “Now that the men have the place for themselves for the rest of the day, what are we gonna do, huh?” he raises an eyebrow at Peter, who turns to look up at him with huge, sleepy eyes. “Right…you look just about ready to call it a night, kiddo. FRIDAY? Do we have pajamas in that box of clothes you ordered?”

“We sure do, boss.”

“Perfect. So what do you say? Sleepy time?”

Instead of answering, Peter yawns and climbs onto Tony’s lap where he sits down and outstretches his arms in a silent prompt to be carried.

“I’ll take that as a yes, sir,” Tony smiles and hauls them both up, nestling Peter into his arms. He looks down to the puppy, now running circles around his legs, wagging his tail like no tomorrow. What did they feed him, drugs?! “Come along, no-name-puppy. Okay…that sucks. What do we name the little guy?” he asks Peter, maneuvering him into his right hand to hold him sideways.

“Pap!” he smiles, watching the dog.

“Yes, the pup…we can’t keep calling him that. How about…,” he starts but immediately realizes that naming things isn’t exactly his strong point. Anyone who’s ever met his bots knows that for a fact. And FRIDAY and BARF are on another level of names entirely. “FRIDAY? What’s a good name for a dog…in your opinion? For _this_ happy as hell running around machine dog?”

“ _Bob?_ ”

“Never mind.”

“Bab!” Peter repeats, pointing at the puppy.

“No. Not Bob. Something more dog…ish and less HYDRA undercover agent-ish. Like Skippy. Or Speedo.”

“Bab!”

“Denny. Zeke. Roomba. Dumbo, just anything but Bob, come on.”

“Bab!” Peter pretty much insists, paying Tony zero attention.

“Right. Bob it is,” he sighs. “FRIDAY? You’re on thin fucking ice right now just so you know.”

“ _And you are on 3500 dollars in the F-fund for today alone, boss_.”

“First that immortal walking meme, then Agent Fakedeath, then the damn wizard and _then_ I’ll find a way to kill _you_ , sasslady. Is this how you’re gonna treat your elders?”

“Weez!” Peter claps his hands, bouncing in Tony’s hold.

“No weez. Absolutely no weez. Come on then, Bob!” he calls after the puppy, walking out into the hallway and towards his private quarters.

Somehow…Bob decides to follow after him – not because he’d be so well-behaved, but rather because he’s a tiny leech that sticks to anyone and anything that give him attention. Just one door short of his own room, he walks into the guest-turned-kids room, heading straight towards the dresser to find the pajamas.

And he sure finds them.

“FRIDAY? Do you understand that whole ice metaphor?”

“ _Sure thing, boss_.”

“Well the ice has broken, you hear me? _Broken_. These are Thor-themed pajamas. _Thor_!”

“ _Of course. As I said – Karen helped me adjust everything to Peter’s preferences_.”

Tony glares upward, letting Peter snuggle the…infuriatingly comfy Thor-onesie. Surely the Iron Man onesie is just as comfy though. Right? He’ll look into that later.

He spends a good half an hour in the bathroom, letting Peter exhaust the last bits of energy playing in the bath and all but flooding the room with water as a result and by the time Tony manages to wrestle the flailing mess of limbs into diapers and the onesie, it’s even dark outside already.

No one said this would be easy. No one and not a single one of those shitty tutorials he spent reading and watching last night.

He’s used to _not easy_ though. He has to live with himself after all.

“Okay. You and I will have to talk about your clothing preferences, but otherwise I think you’re all up and ready for a loooong nap now, aren’t you?” he talks to Peter as he lays him down onto the toddler bed and begins tucking him in.

Peter looks anything but ready even though he was almost dozing off back in the living room. “Bab!” he starts flailing his tiny hands and legs again, completely ruining Tony’s tucking in efforts.

The damn puppy reacts as if he was born to listen to the kid - and born to be called Bob – and jumps on the bed.

“Nope. _Bob_ has his own bed right here, don’t you Bob?” he smirks and maneuvers Bob back down into the little dog nest Happy made with cushions and pillows.

Bob does a couple circles around himself before lying down, folding into a neat, tiny bundle all under Peter’s watchful gaze.

“See? Bob gets the message…unbelievably. Your turn, young sir. Sleepy time,” he begins to tuck Peter in again and is _again_ met with his stubborn flailing. “What?!”

Peter shuffles over to the edge of the bed, trying to reach something on the nightstand.

“Okay, let me get that,” Tony rounds the bed in record time, not keen on watching the kid fall over because of a damn…book? A book?! “The illustrated adventures of Pinocchio,” he reads out loud, scowling at the nearest camera. “FRIDAY, I swear to God…”

“ _It was Peter’s favorite. We asked May_.”

“Well you should have gotten it as audio book then because I’m not reading that. I’m… _not_ ,” he stutters, sitting down when Peter drapes and almost hangs down his elbow. “Seriously kid, I’m not…good at…this,” he frowns at the book, opening it at the first chapter.

Peter distracts himself with inspecting the picture, eyes full of awe, while Tony is keeping busy counting down the seconds to his first official freak out since…a few days ago. After one very bad round of nightmare-filled sleep.

“ _Boss_?”

It’s just a damn book. And he can read – the last time he checked. But _he can’t_.

Howard was too high and mighty to ever emerge from his lab to read anything to him, but Jarvis…Jarvis _loved_ reading. Tony can’t recall any fairytales, but he does remember when he got a bit older, four or five, Jarvis would read him anything Tony brought from the library. An essay on quantum physics, a Sherlock Holmes novel, mushroom encyclopedia, his mother’s charity gala speech…it didn’t matter to Jarvis and it didn’t matter to Tony.

He could read it himself already but he couldn’t care less about that either. Listening to Jarvis’s smooth, Brittish accent before he succumbed to sleep used to be the highlight of Tony’s every day.

Jarvis could make a grocery list into an exciting bedtime story. Jarvis could… _Jarvis could_. Tony _can’t_.

“Ree!” Peter’s commanding falsetto brings him back from the trip down the memory lane. Done with the picture, Peter shuffled back against the head board and underneath the covers, watching him with an expectant look in his big brown eyes.

Tony’s familiar with this one. It’s the ‘read to me now or I will never go to sleep ever’ look that he executed on Jarvis many, many times himself.

But Tony can’t. He wants to and he can’t because he’s a mess and a failure and a –

“Cock!”

Peter’s happy shriek is enough to shock Tony out of the second round of panic as he snaps his eyes to the boy and follows his gaze to the doors he left cracked open.

Hovering there in the air – like the freaky magicky thing it is – is Strange’s fancy crimson cape. Its presence kicks the almost blissfully sleeping Bob back into overdrive and he bolts to meet he uninvited guest, barking and jumping. And when Peter disentangles from the covers and starts wobbling towards it on the bed, making grabby hands at it, the cape flies over and all but smothers the kid in a weird human vs. sentient outerwear hug.

Tony is left glaring at the scene, too distraught to even be too mad about the disturbance or grab the damn cloth, run it through a reliable diamond shredder and pretend it’s never been here.

Thing is, the Blanket of Death doesn’t go flying around on its own. So if it’s here, the wizard it’s so attached to won’t be far behind.

So a few moments of Peter’s happy giggling and wrestling with the cape later, Strange peeks through the doorway, taking in the scene with a scowl of his own.

“Weez!” Peter greets him in between the giggles.

Quickly recovering, Tony shifts his glare onto the newcomer. “Remind me, Strange. What did I tell you about portalling into the Compound?”

“I believe it went something like: You ever portal in here again, I will blast you off to space,” Strange answers without missing a beat.

“Yes. That was it, wasn’t it?”

“You’ll be thrilled to know that I portalled _outside_ the Compound and used this to get in,” he whips out the Avengers pass card from someplace in his ridiculous wizard get-up, his eyes fixated on the cape still playing with Peter.

“Why do you have that?” Tony asks more himself than Strange.

“Colonel Rhodes had one made for me.”

“Et tu, Platypus?” he mumbles, his knuckles going white as his grip on the damn book tightens just then.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Hm? Nothing. Never mind. What are you doing here in the asscrack o’clock at night anyway?”

Strange frowns, finally shifting his attention to Tony. “It’s 6 PM.”

Oh. “So? Might as well be midnight for _someone_ here,” he gestures at Peter. “We were just getting to the bedtime story part so thanks for sending your fancy blanket in here to disturb the peace!”

“I’m sorry,” Strange says and does at least look the part. “I told it to look for you, not start a…whatever that is,” he frowns at the wrestling slash hugging bundle of Peter and the cape.

Tony scoffs, stifling the chuckle that threatened to come out instead. “Well, consider the threat of blasting you into space extended to your cape friend flying around the Compound unattended.”

“Duly noted,” he rolls his eyes and schools his expression into a professional, blank mask that somehow pisses Tony off more than anything else. “I went through some texts on the possible curses that might have been used on Peter to have this effect. Thought you’d appreciate an update?”

That does peak Tony’s interest. “Did you find something?” he stands up, still clutching onto the book.

“Perhaps. We can discuss it after Peter’s put to bed, I can wait,” Strange suggests and unknowingly reminds Tony why exactly isn’t Peter already sleeping.

Tony gulps, looking down at the book as if it was a Pandora’s box full of his darkest nightmares – it might as well be. “Right. Peter. Bedtime story. Talk after,” he blurts out, wondering when’s the book cover going to crack underneath his death grip.

“Do you have tea in this awful, concrete military hellhole?” Strange asks out of the blue. “And I mean real tea, not the dead men ashes they mass produce in those sacks and neat cardboard boxes.”

Somehow the random request averts the third big panic crises of the night and Tony manages to ease up a bit and send the wizard a proper, unimpressed look. “Of course this hellhole has real ass tea, specially for Your Wizarding Fanciness.”

“Asstee?” Peter once joins in the conversation with the worst possible choice of words, making Strange crack a smirk.

“Wonderful. How about you go handle the ass tea – get some coffee going as well – and meanwhile, I’ll take over the story time?”

It takes an all too long a moment for Tony’s brain to catch up with the wizard’s offer and the meaning behind his outstretched, gloved hand. “Uhhh…sure?” he hands the book over to him and watches him inspect the first few pages with interest.

“Adventures of Pinocchio? Good taste,” Strange talks to Peter with a small smile and sits down next to the pillow.

“Ree!” Peter cheers and with the cape’s help, he wobbles to Strange, falling into the man’s side and pointing at the book with eyes full of wonder again.

“Very well. Chapter one,” Strange begins and nods at Tony, giving him a look that he’s unable to quite decipher.

It prompts his suddenly numb body to move to the exit, sparing a look over his shoulder, just as Strange’s captivating voice starts reading the first paragraph.

“Mastro Antonio – but everyone called him Mastro Cherry, for the tip of his nose was soooo round and red and shiny that it looked like a ripe cherry. As soon as he saw that piece of wood…”

Peter quietly babbles along, following Strange’s finger running across the page as he reads.

Not alien invasions, not Ultron, not Thanos, not even Rogers, but this…this might be where Tony finally cracks and loses his mind for good.

He rounds the corner and prays the strangled whine wasn’t audible enough for anyone to hear.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Some alone time with our bois :3 ...which means more angst, mwuhaha!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! ^^ Here's the next dose of...angst, with just a very tiny sprinkle of fluff. But that's Tony and Stephen for you, at least for now :3 
> 
> Enjoy! <3

He finds Tony standing by the counter, staring blankly at the colorfully blinking coffee machine. The engineer is so deep in his thoughts he doesn’t even notice him walking into the kitchen.

Stephen doesn’t need the Time stone to predict there’s only one outcome now, no matter what he does or says – there’s going to be a startled flinch coming from the man, possibly coupled with a crash of the two porcelain cups he’s tightly holding onto.

He would like to pretend he doesn’t see through Tony’s behavior as transparently as through a crystal clear glass – but he can’t. To him, Tony is like an open book written in huge, capital letters ever since he took that trip into over fourteen million possible future dimensions.

Most of them were quick – failed and lost within few moments of Thanos arriving to Titan. Others lasted a bit longer and some were painfully long, almost too long.

They are a blur for Stephen, not even his eidetic memory was able to make him remember every detail of every scenario – thankfully. There are things he did choose to remember though – and things that engraved in his brain forever regardless of if he wanted them to or not.

The result is…curious, at best. Both a blessing and a curse.

If there’s one thing he doesn’t regret knowing, it’s Tony and the million little things he’d learnt about him. Funny how Tony is the one person _everyone_ knows and at the same time the one person everyone really, _really_ doesn’t know. At all.

With the exception of Ms. Potts, Colonel Rhodes, Mr. Hogan and possibly Dr. Banner and the ever observant Peter Parker, there is a never-ending queue of people, that dare believe they know Tony Stark but in reality don’t know a single thing about him.

They know the genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. The Tony Stark of the tabloids, the Merchant of Death of the past, the Iron Man, the Avenger; they _know_ …and at the same time _know so little_. They know the press smiles and forced smirks, the nonchalant flirting, the arrogant quips, the never-ending sarcasm and sass. They know and believe what Tony wants them all to know and believe.

Tony Stark, the selfish bastard slash proper asshole; the man made of iron like Starks are supposed to – unyielding and strong. Never weak and never broken.

Stephen would know – from his very own, personal experience. He thought little else of the man before and even after they met. Of all people, _he_ should have known better – being a fellow selfish bastard and a proper asshole, not to mention a witness of Iron Man flying a god damn nuke through a freaky portal in the sky, he really should have known better – but where would be the fun in that, right?

In the end, he learnt the hard way – seems to be the only way for him to learn anything. And spending a few million torturous dimensions in Tony Stark’s company did the trick.

Stephen knows him. Probably more than any of them would be comfortable with. He stands there in the doorway and he _knows_. He knows things that Tony would never share with anyone if not thrown into his own personal hell – that fighting Thanos became at least a few thousands of times…where Tony lived long enough, that is.

Things Tony would hardly even admit to himself let alone another living and breathing being. Stephen knows them all. And it’s so not fair the either of them.

“He’s asleep,” Stephen whispers – not that it helps anything.

Tony jumps, hand flying over his chest; one cup shattering against the floor, the other skidding across the counter. “Jesus fucking Christ! Can you _not_ , you Dumbledore looking-ass motherfucker?!”

“Are we talking Jude Law Dumbledore? In that case, I’ll allow that.”

“Very fucking funny,” Tony mumbles, his gaze falling to the scattered pieces of porcelain.

Stephen mends the cup with an easy spell, fully expecting the flinch and the glare he gets in return. “Sorry. I would knock…on these non-existent doors but somehow I think the result would be the same.”

“Whatever. There’s your tea, now spill the news, Doctor Wizard.”

“Got places to be?”

“Yes, in fact! Shouldn’t leave Peter alone…if someone busts into that room right now then - ”

“Then they will watch Peter flying away with the Cloak – good luck to them, trying to chase that thing,” Stephen smirks a little, taking the skidded cup and trying his luck with the tea.

“Ohhh, you left a _cape_ to protect a toddler, why didn’t you say so? I’m feeling so much better already!”

“Peter is safe. The puppy is safe, too.”

“Bob.”

“Excuse me?”

“Bob. The puppy is Bob. And don’t you dare look at me like that, it was FRIDAY’s idea…and Peter immediately approved it so…it’s Bob,” Tony shrugs, avoiding the magically mended cup and instead grabbing a fresh one from the cupboard, pouring himself some of that coffee.

“Well then – Bob,” he looks up, hoping FRIDAY understands the glary squint is meant for her, “is safe as well. Besides, if anyone was trying to…bust into that room, I would know.”

“How? You got x-ray vision now?”

“I have set up protective wards around the Compound – anything tries to sneak past them, I will know.”

Tony stares at him without words for a moment, then sits at the table and buries his gaze in the coffee. “Great, so you’ve already magicked this place up. Thanks for telling me…you know, _before_ you actually did that.”

The clear disappointment he hears stabs him straight in the guts so he sits at the opposite side to calm his suddenly unsteady feet. “I…should have done that, yes. You have tightened the security measures already, no doubt…when I got here I figured I should add in a few more that would be handy in case anyone wielding magic tried to get in. Didn’t really think it through at the time…to ask you first, I just…”

Wanted to make sure the Compound was safe, protected at all times…since he already spectacularly failed at keeping Peter safe the first time around.

He can only blame his frantic brain for not actually telling Tony about his intentions first.

“Whatever. It’s done so…you said you found something?” Tony dismisses him and gets back to the point.

Stephen takes a sip of the hot and surprisingly tasty tea and nods. “Me and Wong searched through every spell and curse with this effect that we could possible think of. Our subjects in Kamar-Taj are continuing to look through related texts in the library, but so far we have found a few potential culprits.”

“Spell or a curse?”

“Could be both…it depends on what exactly was the caster attempting to achieve as a result. If they wanted to simply de-age him, then it’s a spell. There’s a small variety of them when it comes to this outcome. If they wanted something else then this could be a side-effect of a curse gone wrong…in which case there is a wide variety of potential curses to consider.”

“Great. So it’s not good news no matter what,” Tony sighs, his form slumping in the chair.

“It’s better news if it’s a spell – there are just a few to choose from and the potential to dispel or use the trace to find the caster is much higher than with a curse. Curses are…well…”

“Not good? Yeah, figured as much.”

Curses are bad. Really, really bad. But he doesn’t need to fuel the flaming inferno of worry reflecting in Tony’s eyes any more than necessary.

“They’re tricky. Not necessarily more difficult to revert or dispel just…tricky,” he says in the end. “First thing’s first, we have to correctly identify the specific curse or spell that was used, otherwise we won’t get anywhere.”

“What do you need?” Tony nods and switches into professional mode quicker than most distraught, exhausted and high-strung on coffee individuals could.

“Time - to research and examine every aspect of the crime scene and…well, Peter. And before you spin this the wrong way, I must perform some tests on the kid – yes but I promise they are neither harmful nor invasive in any way.”

Tony gives him a doubtful look that would offend Stephen had it been coming from anyone else. He takes pride in his craft – whether it was his surgical abilities or now the mystic arts, people doubting his ability or not trusting his word – as if lying was ever his forte or preference - always irritated him.

When it comes to magic and Tony, he doesn’t expect to be trusted though. Not with the man’s extensive shitlist of things that went wrong because of magic.

Loki and his joyride through New York with the scepter and the tesseract. Maximoff and her non-con mind-invading and controlling stunts…and then there’s Stephen and his magical shenanigans he put Tony through on Titan.

Or rather after Titan.

Regardless of Stephen’s intentions, he didn’t give Tony any better reasons to trust him when it comes to magic than either Loki or Wanda.

“You can be there with him through the whole process,” Stephen offers. It’s hard to imagine Tony would just let Peter alone with him, but when it comes to magic – something Tony would most definitely prefer not to be anywhere near of - he can’t quite tell yet. “And you have my permission, no. I _insist_ that should you determine my actions to be harmful, you will…how did you put it? Blow my magical ass to the edge of the universe?”

“Oh trust me. If you do anything suspicious at all, I won’t ask for your permission to do that, I’ll just do it.”

“Good.”

“Is that all we can do right now?”

“I have sent Thor a message as well, since there might be spells the Asgardian magic could help us with but until I hear back from him, all I can do is explore the possibilities I have discovered here. And I can’t do that without Peter.”

Tony continues to stare down into his coffee and Stephen wonders if his words even registered or if the man is already on a downward spiral towards a panic attack.

He knows about those – and he knows enough to not try to question Tony about it. Not now. He most definitely doesn’t have the privilege to do so.

In Tony’s eyes, he’s the mad wizard that made him live through his worst nightmare. Stephen knew this would be the outcome of the one winning scenario he chose to set everyone on the path of. When it comes to defeating Thanos, most would agree that results justified the means. That it doesn’t matter how the Mad Titan’s defeat was orchestrated, as long as he was defeated in the end.

The thing is, most people have no idea what had to be done to achieve this so called victory. Sometimes he wishes he was among them. That his cursed memory was done remembering everything in such perfect details and just wiped itself clean.

Especially in times like these, when Tony looks at him with so much distrust and subtle, yet real fear that it makes Stephen want to gather the dust the Time stone was reduced to, piece it back together and go back to Titan to make his past-self look through millions more possibilities, just to never see that look directed at him ever again.

“Can you do it here?” Tony asks eventually, his hands gripping the cup in a crushing hold. “Your fancy magic experiments, can you do them here?”

Stephen could argue that the Sanctum is just as safe as the Compound – if not safer when it comes to magic, but he would have more luck arguing with this kitchen table. “Of course, if that’s what you’d prefer.”

“It’s not about me. It’s about Peter and I can’t very well be in charge of his safety if I bring him to a place where I don’t know what the security status is.”

Feeling lucky, he decides to pressure on anyway. “I could explain the security measures of the Sanctum to you if you’d like.”

“ _Explain_ magic to me? Yeah, I don’t think so. Unless you found a way to do it in ones and zeroes. Or numbers in general.”

It was worth a try. “The Compound is an agreeable alternative then. Tomorrow after lunch?”

“Tomorrow?” Tony blurts out.

“The sooner the better.”

“Right…tomorrow after lunch it is,” Tony clears his throat and gets back to staring holes into the poor coffee cup.

Stephen knows when he’s outstayed his welcome, so he mutters a thanks for the tea and makes himself scarce. He retrieves the reluctant Cloak from the soundly sleeping Peter, double-checks his wards and portals back to the Sanctum, knowing he’s done all he can.

The first thing that greets him is Wong’s rhythmic humming and his equally rhythmic _wiggling behind_ , where he stands at one of the Library shelves, iPod blasting something suspiciously Beyonce-sounding into his ears.

“Oh for fuck’s sake…,” he sighs and backs out of the room before Wong spots him. He knows Stephen portalled back to _somewhere_ in the Sanctum; what he doesn’t need to know is that Stephen witnessed one of his ritual dances to _All the single ladies_.

Again.

Wong’s already giving him enough stink eyes to last him a decade. Christine would probably laugh at Stephen if she knew the only person completely immune to his bad tampered outbursts of asshole-y-ness is a teenager…who’s also currently a toddler.

She would have a field day with this.

Stephen portals to his room and plops down on the bed into the mess of scrolls and books.

“Time to astral-read all of this,” he mumbles into the pillows and busies himself with reading through the night.

 

 

After maybe three hours of disturbed sleep, Tony gives up and spends the rest of the early morning hours in the lab just across Peter’s room. With FRIDAY’s help, he patches up most of the loopholes and possible backdoors in their security system and by the time she alerts him about Peter waking up, Tony is pretty confident about the HYDRA-proof nature of the Compound.

“Morni - ” he starts as he walks into Peter’s room, but freezes.

Sitting in the mess of covers and pillows is Peter, very much awake and currently playing with Bob and a butterfly.

A _butterfly_.

So much for the Compound being HYDRA-proof…clearly it’s not even butterfly-proof. He recognizes the unnaturally shimmering insect immediately – it’s a magic thing. It’s a _Strange_ thing.

Watching Thanos’s overpowered attacks explode in his face into a gazillion of these was definitely worth it. It was quite a statement, he’ll give Strange that. But what the fuck is it doing _here_?!

“Tank!” Peter spots him and flails, the butterfly doing lazy circles around his head.

“Hey kiddo. Guess what? Uncle Rhodey is officially on the naughty list now.”

Peter just continues chuckling, making grabby hands at the damn flying magic bug.

As Tony carefully approaches, the thing flies toward _him_ which stops him dead in his tracks again. “How about no? Go…go play with the kid and leave me alone,” he talks to the butterfly, wondering if he’s gone officially crazy. Then again, he’s always been better at talking to inanimate objects than people. The butterfly stops in front of his face, just hovering in the air, flapping its magical wings soundlessly. “Is this how you deal with threats, Fri?”

“ _It’s a butterfly, boss,_ ” she responds monotonously with a good old hint of ‘duh’.

“It’s _magic_! It can explode or it can be a spy for all I know!” he glares at it.

“ _And if so, what could I do about it_?” she asks.

That’s the scary question right there, isn’t it? If this was some disguised malicious spell, what could FRIDAY and his state-of-the-art security system do about it?

Absolutely nothing. Because it’s _magic_.

Why is it his karmic destiny to be surrounded by the one thing science can’t dissect and crush, the one thing he hates above all things?! Fucking _magic_. Magic everywhere.

“ _I do not believe it to be a threat_ ,” FRIDAY adds.

“Good for you,” he retorts, watching the very un-butterfly behaving thing like a hawk.

Sure – it’s probably some harmless spell Strange left behind to entertain the kid. But what if next time it’s not his spells. What if the person that did this to Peter shows up in here and starts casting their definitely not harmless spells? What can Tony or anyone else in the Compound with _maybe_ the exception of the Wicked Witch do about that? Strange said he’s put up defenses around the Compound but apparently he’s put up defenses around Peter too and now look at the state of him.

He’s not blaming the damn wizard, but if someone outsmarted him before they can probably do it again and next thing they know, the Compound will turn into a magical battlefield. Which is just perfect.

The one battle he knows he can’t fight, let alone win.

Cringing, he tries swatting his hand at the butterfly to make it go away but it evades him every time, returning to its hovering mode in front of him. He lets out an exasperated huff and this time slowly reaches out toward it instead. Who knows…maybe he can just squish the thing out of existence.

Before he can test the theory, the butterfly meets his hand half-way and casually sits on his knuckles.

It terrifies him for a solid second – maybe this is the part where it explodes. Strange might be all friendly with the kid but when it comes to him, he’d probably wouldn’t go far for a cute explosive assassin spell.

And then his brain catches up with the _cute_ part.

The butterfly is a gentle pressure against his skin – gentle and _warm_. Almost…nice.

It moves its wings up and down a few times and then melts into a warm, shimmering cloud that dissipates in the air.

Tony blinks, releasing a shuddering breath. This was different than his usual encounters with magic. It _felt_ different. Instead of fear and dread, all it left behind was warmth and comfort.

Two things he would never associate with magic. Until now at least.

He moves on to the bed to pick Peter up for his morning routine, but even one hour later when they go walk Bob around the Compound, he can’t shake off the feeling of…content.

The one thing he hadn’t felt since before Titan. Not even when Thanos was finally gone and everyone he snapped out of existence were back to life. His mind, soul and heart were a raging storm that nothing could calm.

The futurist in him was already busy thinking about the next potential world-ending crisis that’s inevitably going to knock on their doors; there was no place for _content_. There still isn’t, especially not now.  

So he doesn’t know if the fact is a relief, or if he should be terrified by it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next - Peter fluffs things up between Magic and Science, Deadpool gets reinforcements and someone is really worried about Tony Stark taking care of a toddler...


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! ^^ Time for some more Supremefam moments! <3 Sorry it took so long but this chapter got a bit out of hand so...yeah ;D I regret nothing tho :D
> 
> Thank you all for your lovely feedback and now just sit back and enjoy! <3

“ _Simulation complete. The relative chance of failure remains to be under 5%_ ,” FRIDAY informs him, temporarily lowering the volume of some weird, random pop song Tony’s heard before but doesn’t know the name of – but it’s in Peter’s playlist, so that’s what they’re listening to.

“Are you kidding me?! Five percent…fucking unacceptable,” he mutters, diving back into coding. It’s not that easy with the unusual song set-up, Peter falling into fits of laughter every other minute and the beeping bots running wild around the kid along with Bob.

He was hoping Peter would be up for a nap after their little outing behind the Compound, but he just devoured another portion of brunch and went from sleepy to hyper within a minute.

The whole sugar makes kids go nuts thing is definitely not just a theory then.

Making due, Tony had the bots clean out a nice bit of the lab and turned it into a toddler-safe play corner. He didn’t even have to bother with bringing toys because once Peter spotted the bots, the imaginary well of entertainment suddenly turned from half full to infinite.

Peter might be on cloud nine – or at least _on DUM-E_ at this very moment – but Tony is thirty thousand miles in the air and uncontrollably falling down to the ground.

Five percent security failure possibility? Ridiculous! He can do better. He _must_ do better.

An hour later, Peter finally squeezes the last bits of energy out of his tiny body and bunks up with Bob in the mess of pillows and blankets, the bots standing guard around them. Probably FRIDAY’s doing. There’s not much the bots can do in terms of security – although they do get pretty mean with the fire extinguishers.

That is until FRIDAY turns them into Skynet operated assassins – Tony thought she was joking about having offensive and defensive protocols ready for them, but he’s found her little self-coded stash of the protocols and has to admit she took it very seriously.

“ _The relative chance of failure is now under 3%_ ,” FRIDAY announces into his earpiece, the lab turning quiet as not to disturb the sleeping duo.

“Alright…now we’re getting somewhere,” he sighs and stretches a bit on the uncomfortable chair. He could move to the sofa, but he’d probably fall asleep too and that’s not at all what he should do – contrary to what FRIDAY would probably tell him.

His sleeping habits were always haywire in comparison to normal people, but after Titan they are straight up fucked. It goes for most of his habits, really…sleeping, eating, working. It’s all a gigantic mess now.

Did he shower this morning? He _thinks_ he did. Or was it last night? His perception of time also went down the drain after months in the cold of space.

The cold is a whole new chapter for him in particular. He didn’t even notice at first after the war was over. Not until FRIDAY pointed out he keeps readjusting the thermometer way under the usual room temperature.

Months of the nearly freezing chill of space creeping into the barely heated spaceship made him strangely used to it, to a point he _seeks_ it out.

The entire space adventure is one experience he doesn’t need to go through again. Most people would be excited to be in a spaceship, travelling through the unknowns of the universe…but the excitement would soon fade with power running out, food running out, water running out, air running out…now that’s really the unfun part of becoming a first-time space pirate – everything running out and having no way to fix it.

Nothing is running out now – there’s plenty of food and water everywhere, as much air as one can take in, enough time and resources to build as many clean energy sources as needed and keep the temperature nice and comfy...even the good old day and night cycle is all good and working and it’s still not enough.

Not enough to fix _himself_.

“ _Doctor Strange is on his way here_.”

“Already?!” he blurts out, fumbling over the console to check the time. 12:36PM. Damn.

Just like yesterday, the first sign of the sorcerer isn’t the man himself but his freaky flying red blanket. It hovers in front of the glass doors until Tony takes mercy on it and give Fri a little wave to let the thing inside.

It all but ignores Tony and flies towards the heavily protected nap corner.

“Uh, I really wouldn’t do th…at,” Tony tries to warn it, but Butterfingers is extra trigger happy today and sprays the cape with a fire extinguisher the second it gets in range.

The cape backs away, shakes the foam off and turns its nonexistent yet somehow completely straightforward and recognizable glare at Tony.

“Don’t give me that look, I tried to warn you, alright? You shall not pass, blanket. Not until you make friends with the mighty metal protectors,” Tony smirks, watching the cape fold its hems like arms over a chest and hesitantly approach the bots again, testing the waters.

“That’s what you get for flying off,” Strange scolds the cape, making Tony jump at his expected, yet still sudden appearance.

“I’m upgrading the fire-extinguisher into a flamethrower by the way. So keep your fancy cape in check next time,” Tony utters, trying not to focus on Strange’s insta-apologetic face.

“I’m sorry.” And there’s the sentence that gets his blood pressure going. Mostly because it seems to be among the first things out of the man’s mouth whenever he speaks to Tony.

_‘I let half of the universe die and made every single one of your worst nightmares come true? – Sorry.’_

_‘Did I scare you shitless by portalling into the conference room out of fucking nowhere? – Sorry.’_

_‘The cape just does what it wants, I’m not the boss of it or anything so – sorry.’_

_‘Oh hey, shit happened downtown and Peter is now a baby – sorry.’_

_Sorry._

It’s not quite how the sorcerer words it, but Tony’s brain has its very own translation mode for these now. And for reasons he would rather not think about too much just yet, he _hates_ it. Every god damn time Strange does it, he fucking hates it.

Because what does _he_ have to be sorry for?!

Nope. Still not gonna think too much about it just yet.

“I’ll just leave it in the Sanctum next time,” Strange raises a daring eyebrow at the cape and it seems to do the trick, because the cape loses its defensive flare and pretty much deflates into what looks like shamefulness.

“Cock!”

“For fuck’s sake,” Tony mutters under his breath, watching the newly awoken Peter make grabby hands at the cape – and it’s only then that the bots relax their protective stances and let the thing pass through to greet the kid with an approximate of a hug. “Never mind. The kid likes the freaky blanket so…whatever, bring it along next time.” Hold on. Next time?!

“Alright. But just so you know, it’s not flammable.”

“Good to know,” Tony squints at him, wondering why he so freely gives up important magic trivia. The cape is most definitely tearable if Titan was anything to go by so the nonflammable part must have something to do with magic.

“Wiz!” Peter beams at the wizard, all tangled up in the cape now. Bob somehow escapes the bundle and dashes towards Strange, running excited circles around him, wagging its tail.

“Hello Peter,” he gives the kid a tiny smile and frowns down at the puppy, shaking his head. “Bob. Who names a puppy _Bob_?”

It’s clearly a rhetorical question since the man knows the story behind the name but that never stopped Tony before. “A weird AI and a weirdly AI compatible mind of an almost two-year old Peter Parker. But I think Wade could come up with something even worse,” he shudders, knowing for _sure_ Wade could and _would_.

“Yes. Anyway…lunch?” Strange holds up a take-out bag, surprising Tony twice in just two minutes. “It’s just pan-friend rice noodles, but I thought it would do for a tiny and kid-friendly snack.”

“If by kid-friendly you mean he’s going to have a blast playing with the noodles _and_ every singular vegetable part of the meal then yes. Nutrition-wise…also yes,” he shrugs and eyes the bag skeptically.

Once again, Strange doesn’t offer it for him to take, just puts it on a nearby somewhat clear table. “Well, there’s enough to go around. This old lady makes it just a corner away from the Hong Kong Sanctum and it’s _divine_ ,” he spells it out with a voice way too deep for Tony’s liking and for a second there, it actually makes him want to have a taste of the damn noodles.

“Wow. A take-out all the way from Hong Kong, hm? You sorcerers sure don’t play around.”

“One of the _few_ perks of magic I suppose,” Strange replies with a small, lopsided smile.

Tony would argue that there must be a lot more than just _few_ perks, but something about the way Strange said it stops him. “Hm. Speaking of magic, I thought we had the ‘please tell me when you put spells all around the Compound for whatever reason’ talk yesterday? Must have missed the part about the…butterfly thing.”

“The _what_ thing?” Strange’s eyes snap to Tony, narrowing in suspicion.

“Look, I’m not mad or anything, it was obviously some harmless trick and Peter had a lot of fun with it but…just warn a guy, alright? And there I was kidding about the balloon animals,” he attempts to lighten up the mood, even shooting the sorcerer his press-worthy grin but it slides right off when it meets the utter confusion spreading over Strange’s face, his eyes widening in alarm. “You… _did_ ,” Tony flails his hands around, mimicking Strange’s crazy magic hand patterns, “conjure that thing up, right?”

Strange blinks, his gaze momentarily slipping to Peter. “What was it that you saw…exactly?” he asks and while his expression turned emotionless faster than Tony ever managed it, his voice betrays everything.

Tony collects his already spiraling thoughts and stands up. “A butterfly… _the_ butterfly. Like the ones you used on Titan against Thanos?” he adds and mentally congratulates himself for not breaking down half-way through that sentence as some unwanted memories threaten to overwhelm him. “I went to wake Peter up this morning and he was already up playing with a butterfly just like that one.”

“He was?” Strange frowns, looking at Peter again.

“Okay, now you’re really freaking me out. Please tell me _you_ magicked it into existence…because right now you look like you’ve got no idea what I’m talking about and that’s…” Scaring him shitless.

“No! No…,” Strange raises his hands in a placating way and most of the tension that griped his body seems to dissipate. “I know what you’re talking about…I _think_.”

“Wow. That’s _very_ reassuring, thanks!”

“What color was it?”

“Wh…excuse me?!”

“Focus, Stark…the butterfly. What color was it?” he repeats patiently.

“It was the same color as the ones on Titan!”

“So blue and some green thrown in there?”

Tony’s brain restarts just then and he glares at the wizard. “Wh…yes. That’s the…the word you’re looking for is _teal_.”

Strange lets out a relieved sigh, the last remaining edge of fear leaving his body and it allows Tony to will his frantic mind to settle some more. “Well then, there’s nothing to worry about. And _teal_? Seriously?” he squints at Tony.

“ _Blue and some green thrown in_? Seriously?” Tony shoots right back. “The color’s got a name, you know. Now…what is this _nothing_ that I shouldn’t worry about?”

Strange hums, looking down in thought and for almost a minute, the only sound in the lab is the mighty chorus of Peter’s giggles, Bob’s barking and the beeping of the bots.

“Strange!” Tony prompts the man impatiently and folds his arms.

“Hm?” he looks up. “I was wondering how I can explain this to you in _numbers_.”

Tony quickly hides the growing smirk behind an inconspicuous sniffle and nods. “Yeah, we don’t have all eternity, go on. Talk magic to me, Dumbledore. I’ll switch my science off for…ten seconds.”

That gets an over-exaggerated eye-roll out of the wizard and this time Tony does smirk.

“It’s got to do with the color… _teal_ ,” Strange grimaces.

“Your little tricks are usually what…orange?” Tony follows up.

“Not just mine. You could say the color is orange…slash brown…in general, for most of the spells. There are some color variants with some specific spells but otherwise it’s just that.”

“What’s teal then?”

“It’s uh…difficult to explain,” he sighs, taking a step to the side where he leans against a workbench. “See, defensive spells – like the one you’ve seen me use against Thanos - are fairly abstract. They are hard to train and even harder to master because they usually lack a…visual effect, something one could imagine to be the result of casting it. Most sorcerers choose to use some sort of visualization to help them with properly executing the spell…which results in a mundane magical effect.”

“The butterflies?” Tony mumbles.

“My own visualization technique. They are basically a byproduct of the defensive spell and serve no other purpose at all. That’s where the color importance comes in – mundane magic like this always results in teal. It’s short-lived, serves no purpose other than creating the visual effect and is thus completely harmless.”

"Unlike all the orange stuff that can kick some ass?"

"Pretty much. It's possible the butterfly was just a left-over effect from the wards I set up last night. Nothing to worry about there, really," Strange assures him but Tony has heard that tone of voice before.

Mostly coming from himself though, whenever he wanted Rhodey to stop pestering him about food and sleep and just go away. Whenever he wanted to tell someone exactly what they wanted to hear - not necessarily the whole truth.

"Uh huh. For a...mundane magic with no purpose as you said, that thing was acting a little too sentient for my liking. And I know a thing or two about sentiency here, so on a scale of DUM-E to FRIDAY, the butterfly was a strong middle between DUM-E and your flying carpet."

If the poorly hidden gulp is any indication, Tony's definitely onto something here. "What _did_ it do, exactly?"

"Nothing much...played with Peter for a bit and then decided to fly over to stare at me for a minute and disappeared."

"Hm. Well, whatever it did, it really should be of no concern. That kind of magic cannot do any harm...no matter how seemingly sentient it may behave."

Yeah, there's definitely something bothering the wizard. The harmless part of his speech at least sounded like the truth so Tony drops the issue, deciding that seemingly sentient useless butterflies aren't worth his brain power after all.

"Alright, break time, you guys!" he walks over to the play corner, disrupting the loud group from their weird talking game. For a piece of clothing, the damn cape can communicate real well - especially since it can barely make any sound at all. "When do you want to start?"

Strange still looks half buried in his thoughts when he answers with: "Anytime is fine with me. I can go over the research I've got on the procedure a few more times if you want to dig into the snack first?"

Tony nods and picks Peter up. The kid is back to his energetic self and flails a little before his ever curious eyes fixate on Tony's arc reactor and occupies his hands with prodding at it. Tony disabled it the first time it caught Peter's fancy, which resulted in numerous attempts at summoning the armor from within. Now that it doesn't do anything by touch alone, Peter still seems to be quite happily distracted by just the glow itself.

"What do you say, Spiderkid? Lil' snack before work, hm?"

As if he had to ask. The kid's stomach is a bottomless pit when he's a teen - becoming a toddler didn't really change much in that regard. So he sits down and lets Peter nibble at the noodles, while enjoying a box of them himself.

Strange takes one too - since he brought enough to feed a small village apparently - but retreats to the sofa where he surrounds himself with floating ancient-looking scrolls that he intently studies while he eats in silence.

So Tony does the same. Whether it is due to Strange’s over the top advertisement, his hunger or the delicious taste of the simple meal, he devours the portion within minutes without it turning his stomach even once.

He frowns at the take-out box and for a moment ponders the option of eating another one but dismisses it, instead watching Peter play with his food just as he knew he would.

Thankfully, the bots stay in the play-corner with the cape and Bob and if Tony ever goes fully insane, he might actually start believing the metal gang, the dog and the sentient cape are actually having a heated conversation if the beeping, barking and frantic fluttering of fabric is anything to go by.

It's ridiculous...yet in a world now full of magic and what-not, Tony wouldn't even be surprised anymore.

When Peter's done playing with the noodles and throwing radishes all around the table, Strange approaches them with one eyebrow masterfully raised in question.

"I guess we're ready, doc," Tony announces, shaking his head at the mess on the floor. "What d’you need?"

"As I said, the process is not invasive or disruptive - in fact, you won't even know I'm here...mostly because it will look like I'm _really_ not here."

"Wow. If you tell me you have an invisibility cloak, I am calling J.K. Rowling right now because there's no way she's not part of your cult as well."

"I don't have an invisibility cloak - and I'm fairly certain J.K.Rowling is not a Master of the mystic arts. Ninety percent certain. We don't use ridiculous spells butchered into existence from Latin. So I'm sixty percent sure she's not a sorcerer."

"Sixty? You said ninety," Tony squints at him.

"Did I? I'm at least forty percent sure she's...a muggle in regards to us."

"You...never mind," Tony cuts himself off when he realizes how easy it is to fall into an enjoyable banter with the wizard. That's another thing he really hates about the guy, as if there weren't enough of those already. "You're a big Harry Potter nerd by the way."

"Takes one to know one," Strange smirks, quipping back with an ease that makes Tony even angrier - because it's _impressive_.

It makes him want to explore more of it and that straight up pisses him off. He hates the wizard so why - of all the people in his life - is he the only person capable of keeping up with Tony like this.

Rhodey does okay with the jokes, Bruce keeps up with the science and Pepper keeps up with his _undercover_ side - the double-meanings, the hidden emotions, the notes between the lines...and then there's Strange.

How dare he keep with _all_ of that?! It should be impossible. If not impossible then illegal. And Strange should be the last person on Earth capable of that.

"What's the gig then?" Tony reverts back to the task at hand, silently brooding over Strange's superior banter abilities - not superior to him of course, just...in general.

"We have a thing called the mirror dimension - as the name suggests, it creates a dimension that appears to be the same as...this room for example. Whatever happens within the dimension however doesn't affect the real world and stays quite invisible to it. We often use it to practice magic that has potential to be dangerous or to contain dangerous magic, relics or even people."

Tony gulps, narrowing his eyes a little. “You said it’s not going to be dangerous…and now you’re telling me you will hide in another dimension because _it might be dangerous_?”

“Roos?” Peter looks up at him, one finger stuck in his nose.

“Don’t worry about it… _Underoos_ ,” he winks at him.

“I will perform the tests in the mirror dimension just so that our dimension isn’t at all affected by them – in other words, Peter will not be affected,” Strange explains with patience Tony doubted he possessed.

Ever the scientist, that’s not enough for him though. “How can you perform tests on something without affecting it?”

“The same way you can get yourself a Rembrandt and test your painting skill on it with a set of school-grade watercolors without ruining the whole thing.”

“You’re going to make a _copy_ of the kid?!”

Strange sighs – the same way Tony does when someone doesn’t understand his genius new engineering idea. “Yes…and no. It’s not a clone or a copy just…alright, this might be way too abstract to explain after all. I will use a spell that can recreate an object in real time – inanimate or animate – based entirely on the original. It’s not going to result in anything…living, it’s just a spell after all. For all intents and purposes, it will however possess the exact same attributes as the original subject, be it shape or color – or residue magic.”

“Jik!” Peter claps his hands, bouncing in Tony’s arms.

He stares at the wizard for a moment before kicking his brain back into full functionality. “You mean…like a virtual machine.”

“A what now?” Strange reels back a bit.

“A virtual machine. You know, on your comp…you do know what a computer is right?” he smirks when the comment makes the wizard roll his eyes again and sputter some nonsense under his breath. “A virtual machine is a simulation of a computer, basically. You can set it up to match your computer in every way or make it look like a completely different one – it won’t be real, but it will look and behave real and while it’s running you can do whatever in it without affecting the actual computer. Then, when you shut it down, it’s gone. Like it never existed and nothing happened in it.”

“Huh,” Strange nods. “That’s…weirdly accurate I suppose. You could have just said _simulation_ , you know?”

“Yeah but where would be the fun in that, Dumbledore? Wanted to see _your_ brain melting for a change,” he grins. “Your art metaphor doesn’t make any sense by the way.”

Strange tilts his head a little, staring at him before there’s a tiny smile growing on his lips. “Your overly technical explanation is better. May I?” he extends his hands toward Peter.

Tony clears his throat and tucks his own hands under Peter’s arms. “Alright, Dorothy. Time to go see the wizard,” he smirks and hands the kid over to the man’s shaky hands. “That a thing with you or are those withdrawal shakes?”

The question comes pouring out before the words even form properly in his brain – courtesy of his still nonexistent brain to mouth filter. He should probably invest in that instead of…whiskey stocks.

Strange winces a little, adjusting the happily babbling toddler against his chest. “Do I look like a druggie to you?” he retorts, but it lacks the usual jest.

“No…but your preference for ‘herbal’ tea is suspicious at best.”

“It’s nothing drug related…yet,” he retorts, a weirdly cold and emotionless grin spreading over his face, disappearing before Tony can inspect it closer. “Now…,” he focuses back on Peter, walking over to the play corner where he puts the kid back into the mess of blankets and pillows.

With a flurry of hand motions he initiates the spell, making Tony flinch at the sight. The lab is momentarily illuminated by the bright orange of the magic, a series of complicated geometrical shapes forming around Strange’s hands and the entirety of Peter.

It’s magic and it’s freaky, but Tony can’t help but admire the artsy yet mathematical complexity of it for just a moment.

“Jik!” Peter cheers, eyes widened in awe and it’s all the assurance Tony needs that whatever Strange is doing isn’t harmful in the least.

“This should do,” Strange nods and the light show comes to an abrupt end. “It will take about an hour so please, do continue your project,” he tells Tony and with another quick abracadabra, he disappears into what almost seems like a wall full of tiny mirrors.

“O-kaaaay,” Tony frowns at the spot where he disappeared, approaching it with curiosity. “So…you’re still here…but nobody can see you. That’s…creepy. And definitely on my list of magic spells I really didn’t need to know existed. Right next to portals. Especially that infinity falling portal? Unless Loki was making that up. Was he? Great…now I’m talking to myself,” he realizes to the mad giggling of the kid. “Oh well, it’s nothing new. Fri?”

“ _Yes, boss_?”

“Let’s run some more tests on that security protocol. And while you’re at it, analyze the room and look for this funky mirror dimension thing. Might as well multitask and start sciencing the magic up,” he smirks and plops down on the nearby sofa, grabbing a tablet from behind the pillows.

Strange’s head suddenly plops out of the invisible dimension, wiping Tony’s smirk off in record time. “Good luck with that. I might be appearing every now and then to check the spell’s accuracy with Peter – don’t mind me,” he winks and disappears again.

“Don’t mind m…says the _head_ just casually floating around the room! Fuck’s sake,” Tony mumbles and fires up the tablet.

“ _You have a message from Deadpool, by the way_ ,” FRIDAY informs him, immediately bringing it up on screen.

“Good news?”

Friday’s lack of an answer is…enough of an answer. Since when is anything Deadpool-related good news.

_‘tell Hulk hes on our shit list – stop.’_

_‘my awesome force of a team didnt need any reinforcements – stop.’_

_‘well keep the kleptofurry and the teenwood but I will fedex the alcochic back from the nearest post office – stop.’_

_‘never mind – shes really good at chopping limbs off – stop.’_

_‘dont tell Hulk i complained – stop.’_

_‘regrowing limbs is not fun – stop.’_

Tony just sighs at the gazillion emails. “Did Bruce send him reinforcements?” he frowns up at the nearest camera.

“ _I wouldn’t really know, boss. But Valkyrie, Rocket and Groot did arrive on Earth early in the morning_.”

“Thanks for the heads up.”

“ _Groot insisted they are incognito on a secret mission so I didn’t want to blow their cover_.”

“Since when do you take orders from Groot? Better yet…since when do you _understand_ Groot?!”

“ _Since Rocket stole one of my processor modules from the server room and installed it on the Benatar_.”

Tony groans and swipes the emails away. “Send Wade a reply…tell him, that I expect actual HYDRA-related news from him next time and that if he wants to send me telegrams, then he better use Morse code instead of Comic Sans 12. And tell him to warn Rocket about the rabbit hunting season that’s now in full effect in the Compound.”

“ _Sure. Should I also initiate the Rabbit Hunting Season security mode then_?”

“Please do.”

 

 

Half an hour later, Tony finds himself dozing off, not even Strange’s torso occasionally popping out of thin air near the play corner is enough to keep him focused. When he’s done with the hocus pocus, he’ll wake him up so why not take a little nap in the meantime?

Just a tiiiiiiny little nap. Maybe he can chance five, ten minutes without the world falling apart. Or without drowning in nightmares.

He doesn’t know how long he manages to sleep for, but for the first time in months, he’s not brought back to consciousness by his own scream. He doesn’t dream of Titan or Siberia, not even Afganistan.

Instead, he dreams of colors and shapes and fluttering flaps of wings and wakes up to high-pitched giggles and a deep, smooth voice echoing in the otherwise silent lab.

“Energy is a bit like money - if you have a positive balance, you can distribute it in various ways, but according to the classical laws that were believed at the beginning of the century, you weren’t allowed to be overdrawn. So these classical laws would have ruled out any possibility of time travel. However, as has been described in earlier chapters, the classical laws were superseded by quantum laws based on the uncertainty principle.”

Tony peels his eyes open and shuffles just enough to squint into the darkness of the lab. The play corner is however illuminated by three orange, magical orbs hovering above Strange, sitting amidst the pillows with Peter in his lap and a book hanging in the air in front of them.

The bots are quiet and unmoving and even Bob is just peacefully lying next to Strange, his head resting against his side. All Tony can do is stare at the surreal scene and listen to the soothing voice, threatening to put him right back to sleep.

“The quantum laws are more liberal and allow you to be overdrawn on one or two accounts provided the total balance is positive. In other words, quantum theory allows the energy density to be negative in some places, provided that this is made up for by positive energy densities in other places, so that the total energy re-mains positive. An example of how quantum theory can allow negative energy densities is provided by what is called - ”

“The Casimir effect,” Tony finishes for him and sits up with a yawn. One more sentence and he would totally be falling back to sleep.

“Tank!”

Strange halts his storytelling, eyes locking with Tony’s. “Ah. Hope we didn’t wake you up.”

“With Hawking’s Brief History of Time? On the contrary, that used to put me down to sleep. Not a usual bedtime read though.”

“No, but this one here brought it and Peter seems intrigued all the same,” he shrugs, waving in DUM-E’s direction.

“DUM-E does have a taste for quantum physics. He probably understands it as much as you two,” he chuckles and is surprised to find it echoed by the wizard. “Speaking of time…”

“ _It’s 7PM, boss_ ,” FRIDAY informs him.

“What?!” he jumps up from the sofa, regretting it the second his back protests at the sudden treatment. “Why didn’t you wake me up?!”

Strange shrugs, reaching for the floating book and closing it. “Saw no reason to. You looked like you needed the rest.”

“But…but…,” he sputters, flailing his hands towards Peter.

“We walked Bob outside for a bit and had another round of…messy noodles,” he cringes, eyes fleeting to the table. “And messy dog food. Bob’s quickly adopting some of the kid’s habits.”

“Oh good. He’ll be parroting swear words back at us in no time as well, huh? What about your…spell thing?” he asks, walking up to them.

“Ah! I have some news I suppose,” he nods opening his mouth to continue but stops, looking down at Peter. “Why don’t I go put the lively fella here to bed and we can talk afterwards?”

Tony pouts a little at the thought…he spent half the day programming the security protocols and the other half asleep instead of with Peter.

He’s already turning out to be a horrible guardian.

“Sure. I’ll uh…go make some coffee. And…tea?”

“Please. I’ll meet you there,” he nods and hauls himself up along with Peter, the cape flying around Tony to meet them from who knows where. “Alright, say goodnight, Peter,” he prompts the kid and to Tony’s surprise, Peter turns to him and waves his tiny hand at him.

“Nay nay!”

Tony chuckles and waves back. “Nighty night, Pete.”

Before leaving, Strange sends him a tiny smile and for just that one moment, Tony could almost forgive and forget every reason why he hates the man so much.

Or rather why he hates him _so little_ after what he’s put him through.

He heads up to the kitchen with Bob tailing after him, apparently not ready to be tucked in yet.

“Okay, what do we have here…,” he checks the cupboard and takes out that weed tea the wizard likes so much.

He refills Bob’s water bowl, starts the coffee maker and sits down at the counter, waiting for water to boil. There should be tea makers too, would be so much easier. Are there tea makers? He’ll have to find out. He can always just build one.

“Tony?”

He flinches so hard he stumbles off and nearly falls down from the stool. It’s one thing being jumpy – the only company he had on the Benatar was Nebula and she wasn’t exactly capable of sneaking up on him with that squeaky joint in her knee. He’s still not used to…other people.

It’s another thing when this other person is Steve Rogers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Steve needs to mind his own business, Wade is still grumpy from regrowing the arm Valkyrie ripped off - for science, and Stephen declares a magical emergency...much to Wong's amusement.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Time for some more magic ^^ And butterflies :3 And surprise supersoldiers. 
> 
> Thank you all for your lovely comments and kudos and without further ado, enjoy this here new chapter! <3

“You ever heard of knocking?!” he blurts out at the all too innocent-looking supersoldier. It’s his go-to reaction these days at being spooked out of his mind by…anyone really.

FRIDAY resorted to announcing everyone approaching his location months ago – and even announced it’s not helping most of the time.

This time, she clearly wasn’t expecting Rogers to actually come in here. Must have been some last minute decision she failed to react to because if there’s someone he really, _really_ doesn’t need to be alone in one room with, it’s Rogers.

Sure – they shook hands and worked together to defeat Thanos but that’s a given. It was expected of them, not to mention he’s not nearly petty enough to refuse help when it came to Thanos and reversing the snap.

The past had to be set aside in order to save the future. So the Avengers once again banded together to do what their name suggests. Avenge shit and possibly even fix everything along the way.

For once, it worked.

That doesn’t mean he felt comfortable fighting alongside the man that lied to him and then left him behind, bleeding out in a freezing enemy bunker, not to mention the woman that also lied to him and backstabbed him every chance she got since he met her.

Natasha being her spineless spy self is one thing – Tony learnt the hard way not to expect any better from her. She’s too good at what she does to be trusted with anything she says or does because nobody ever knows _why_ she’s saying or doing it. Tony certainly doesn’t and he’s already given up on trying.

Rogers is a different story.

He’s not some shady former Russian spy with a checkered past and a very loose sense of honesty and integrity. He’s Captain goddamn America! The pillar of morality everyone – especially Tony – should be looking up to. Howard never missed a chance to lecture him this way every other week at least.  

Captain Perfect in every way, a true American hero and idol. Funny how that turned out.

Screw the Accords thing, screw the man’s naïve ideologies and stubbornness. All of that, Tony could deal with. Captain America lying through his perfect red white and blue teeth and hiding the truth away from him for years – that he can’t deal with.

Nobody is perfect – not even the exalted human specimen that Rogers is believed to be - probably started to believe it himself at one point. His perfectly crafted, fake image of flawlessness is about as believable as Tony’s very own public image. The public and the press eat it up in spades of course, why bother using brains after all?

Tony didn’t trust the image. He didn’t trust him because of what other people said about the man – he trusted him, because he earned that trust. Through the years of being teammates, fighting off the bad guys, protecting the little guys...together. He had a front row seat to the man his father would gladly swap Tony for if ever given the chance and hell, Tony would probably agree and just let him.

He ended up believing in the man Peggy told him about – the scrawny guy who would always do the right thing, no matter the cost. The big guy who would never forget where he started and would always fight for the little guys now that he could. Because that’s what Steve Rogers was supposed to be and that’s what Tony truly believed him to be after meeting and fighting alongside the man in person.

It’s hard to see the lie when you’re so blindsided by what you believe is the truth. And when the lie comes out into the light and stabs you right in the face, it hurts all the more.

Because he let himself trust again. He trusted his intentions, he believed they were teammates and on some good days he would have even believed they were friends. It must be some cruel, ongoing joke in his life – to trust and to be betrayed. Over and over again until it gets him killed one day. Obadiah almost succeeded and Rogers wasn’t too far away from succeeding either.

Tony can’t forget and can’t forgive because if aunt Peggy, Rhodey and Pepper ever taught him anything – and by taught, he really means drilled it into his thick, Stark skull – it’s that friends don’t do shit like this. They don’t keep these kinds of secrets away from each other. They don’t treat each other like shit. They don’t immediately assume the worst whenever one or the other does or says something questionable.

And even if they weren’t friends – which he’s slowly beginning to accept – then it’s still no excuse. What sort of a teammate, no…what sort of a _team leader_ learns the most damning truth about the worst event in his teammate’s life and just keeps it all to himself until a fucking bad guy of the week comes in to blow up the lid of it, in the absolute worst possible way and situation?!

The sad truth is that the Avengers weren’t that much of a team to begin with. Tony didn’t exactly have anything to compare their teamwork to before meeting the Guardians – and oh, did he suddenly have quite the example of how a team is supposed to look like.

He could have fucking cried if all of his tears weren’t already spent after Titan.

Teams are just not his thing after all. Trusting people is hopefully not his thing anymore either. So now he can just quietly figure out how to leave the Avengers and fall into the background of things where he can thrive, not having to deal with a “team” that’s led by a zero-integrity pillar of lies and an alien chick that came out of nowhere and nobody knows her but fuck it, she’s powerful and shit so she’s in! Kinda like Wanda, the third person he will very much enjoy not having around.

Maybe he should have moved out of the Compound already. That way, he wouldn’t have to experience a heart-attack every time one of the Avengers caught him in the common rooms.

He resorts to just glare at Rogers and his wannabie apologetic face, while Bob actually growls at him. It’s a high-pitched, cute-kinda growl, but still a growl.

“Jumpy much? Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he says and _of course_ the apology comes _after_ the accusation.

“Whatever,” Tony gathers himself and moves his glare to the extremely slowly working pot of water.  

“Where’s Peter?”

Tony reels back at that, an unamused chuckle escaping his lips. “Wow. Can you make it at least two steps inside the room before starting the inquisition?”

“Tony.”

“What?!” he snaps, hating how awful his name sounds in Rogers’s version of it. It’s not like he can tell him to start calling him “Doctor Stark” now…even though he would enjoy the momentary stunned look on his face if he did…probably. But half of the team already thinks he’s a pretentious, petty asshole so he doesn’t need to fuel the fire, no matter how physically sick it makes him whenever they call him with so much unearned familiarity.

“Nobody’s expecting you to take care of him 24/7,” he raises a placating hand. “But you can’t just leave him alone!”

“He’s not alone,” Tony answers with patience that would earn any other human at least five consecutive Nobel prizes for peace.

“FRIDAY and your bots don’t count! Jesus, Tony…,” he shakes his head, still standing by the door like a boogeyman.

He laughs, humorless and a little insane to his own ears. “If you think I would let the most wanted two-year old on HYDRA’s kidnap list alone with DUM-E, then maybe _your_ name should be dummy, not his. And if you wanted to offend FRIDAY’s ability to keep anyone inside this Compound safe then you definitely succeeded.”

“ _Indeed_ ,” she speaks in a low, almost threatening tone.

“I didn’t mean to…,” he sighs and walks in, grabbing a glass off the shelf. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“Why not? Isn’t that your second favorite thing to do?” he quips, earning a another, long and disappointed sigh. He’s a bit of an expert when it comes to disappointed sighs. It’s everyone’s favorite interjection when in his presence and Howard had it mastered before Tony was even five.

“Who’s with him then?”

“Why? Do you want to interrogate them too?” he folds his hands, squinting at the supersoldier, now busy drinking his glass of tap water. Funny how his room also has glasses and tap water. And three different kitchenettes closer to it than this one if drinking is something one can only do in kitchens.

“Why are you being so defensive? Can I not ask about the well-being of my own teammate?”

“You can…you just usually don’t, in my experience,” he mumbles before his brain can catch up with the words – and the fact Rogers’s annoying superhearing could probably hear them even if he just said them in his head. Welp. Might as well just roll with it now. “Or is that just me? I guess that’s just me. Oh well. Never mind. Peter is just fine. He ate a mountain of food, played with Bob and the bots and now he’s getting tucked in. Any other questions? You wanna know which new words he learned today? How many poo poo’s he made? How many boogers he ate along with the noodles?”

Cue another familiar sigh. “No. You say he’s fine, he’s fine. That’s all I wanted to know.”

“Good. Wonderful small talk, let’s never do it again.”

The hurt puppy look is almost comical on Rogers’s face. “Why would you say that? I don’t get it…you’ve been so distant ever since we defeated Thanos, the team barely ever sees you around the Compoud - ”

“That’s kinda the point.”

“ – you…what’s going on, Tony? You weren’t like this even after returning to Earth. Look, if you need to talk - ”

“Then you will be the last person in the universe who I would talk to, thanks but no thanks. Seriously. I would talk to Loki first before ever even thinking about _you_. Oh hell, I would talk to Thanos! Yup. You’re all the way down there with _Thanos_.”

“I don’t understand. You’re okay with Clint, Natasha…Wanda I don’t expect you to be all friendly with, but you even talk with Bucky just fine. What did _I_ do?!”

“Nothing.”

“Then why - ”

“That’s what you did. You did _nothing_. You _could_ have and _should_ have done something, but you did nothing. So please, if you could now do just _one_ thing? For me? Stop. Talking to me. Stop pretending to be my friend, we already established that’s not who I am or who I ever was to you; stop asking me about my day or about the weather, stop asking me about Rhodey and how he’s doing, stop creeping around my area of the Compound to coincidentally meet me, stop pretending to care about anything related to me, stop…just _stop_ ,” he hisses and is kinda proud of not making it all sound angry or spiteful.

He delivered it with as much emotion as he’s capable of when it comes to Steve Rogers – which is now none.

“You want to talk Avenger business? That’s fine, we can still do that. I can be professional, even with you. But something tells me you’re still not very clear on the professional and personal boundaries here so let me spell it out for you Rogers. You have something to tell me about what the team is doing, missions, emergencies, whatever? Fine. But outside of that? Just leave. Me. The. Fuck. Alone.”

For once, Rogers’s face is wiped clean of everything. No suspicious frowns, no disappointed raised eyebrows, no angry pouts. Nothing. And it’s a pretty nice look on him as well. Too bad Tony’s belated request not only doesn’t make him speechless for too long, it clearly falls on deaf ears.

“I’m…you…this is still about _Siberia_?!” his brows scrunch in a tiny frown. “After all this time?”

It’s Tony’s time to stare, all thoughts and emotions wiped away from him. “What do you mean _all this time_? What do you mean _still_?!”

“I apologized - ”

“No, you sent a letter. A fucking _letter_ , where you made your _excuses_. I’m sorry, was I supposed to melt away at the gesture, call you right back with that offensive phone you dug out of a 20’s dumpster somewhere and tell you _I’m_ sorry?! Yeah, how about _no_?!”

“What do you want me to say?! That I’m sorry?! Of course I am! If I could do anything to change what happened, I would!” he raises his voice just then and if that sends an estranged shiver of fear down Tony’s spine, he doesn’t let it show.

With all the nearly lost calm he can find, he simply replies with: “All I want you to say now is: ‘okay, I will leave you alone because I’m not an asshole who doesn’t respect other people’s clearly stated wishes’. That’s about all I need to hear from you for the rest of my life.”

“Tony…” he discards the glass on the counter and with a step forward, he reaches out to him.

In that split-second, as he watches the man’s advance and the terror rises in his chest like a sudden flood brought upon by ten different tsunami waves, he can only berate himself for not having at least three escape routes out of this room.

Something Bucky often complains about when it comes to the Compound. Too much glass, not enough doorways, narrow corridors, not enough space to crawl through vents…and Tony thought _he’s_ got a never-ending list of PTSD pet-peeves.

Now that he thinks about it, this must boggle Rogers’s brain the most. How he can have a casual conversation with the guy he nearly killed in that bunker for killing his parents but refuses to be civil with his American Captainship.

Before he can scramble off the stool again and probably end up having a panic attack against the wall at the very end of the room, Rogers’s advance is stopped mid-step by glowing sparkles and fluttering of wings.

Rogers stumbles backwards, pulling his hand away in a spooked manner. They both stare at the teal butterfly, hovering in the air in front of Tony like some sort of weird, magicky guardian.

Only that’s not what it is. Teal means useless. Teal means it’s some leftover whatnot magic…that appears on its own in suspiciously convenient situations.

A _teal butterfly_ means _Stephen Strange’s_ magic and in Stephen Strange’s very own words – it can’t do anything. Harmless, useless and no cause of worry at all for anyone.

If the ‘I just pissed my pants’ look on Rogers’s face is anything to go by, it _can_ do something after all.

Recovering first, he wills his nerves to calm enough so he can once again focus on the entire room and searches for the elusive wizard or his overly-attached carpet. The pot of water had stopped boiling some time ago, Bob is back to growling at Rogers and Rogers is standing there like a spooked kid in a haunted house on Halloween – the wizard and the cape are nowhere to be seen though.

No sign of anything magical that could cause the butterfly to appear, yet here it is.

Yeah, if he didn’t have doubts about Strange’s suspicious dismissal of the butterfly thing before, he sure as hell does now.

“What…is _that_?!” Rogers stutters and points at the poor, flying thing with his accusative finger.

Feeling bolder than ever, Tony rolls his eyes and stands up. “It’s a butterfly. Duh! Didn’t have those in the forties?” he shakes his head and reaches out to the butterfly, feeling the familiar warmth emitting out of it.

Just like before, it meets his hand half-way and settles on it, gives him a few more flaps of its glittering wings and then melts away into warm, magical sparkles – gone as fast as it appeared. Almost like saying – welp, my job here is done.

And it sure is, judging from Rogers’s squinty, constipated expression and zero intention of moving anytime soon.

Grabbing the opportunity by both hands, he rounds the stunned supersoldier and with a quick: “See ya…not,” he shoots out of the kitchen with Bob close behind and bolts to the corner leading to Peter’s room.

When he gets there, he’s breathing like he’s just run the marathon and back so he takes a second to compose himself for like the fifth time today before going in. He definitely needs to get the hell out of this place.

After Peter’s all good and HYDRA is reduced to just few heads again, he will.

He doesn’t need to be stressed out in his own damn home like this. Bruce had the right idea by not even moving enough clothes into his room here and just heading off to Asgard ‘after work’. For once, Tony should take his advice and do the same. Find himself a home somewhere far, far away from here – not necessarily on another planet, although why the fuck not – and only ever show up for top tier emergencies.

Sounds great.

Speaking of things that sound great, Strange’s annoyingly deep and smooth voice is reading through some more of Hawking’s thesis while Peter is pretty much dead asleep underneath the covers.

Wait… _what_?! Nope. Not deep and not smooth and _definitely_ not great!

“Someone’s demanding,” he whispers, nodding at Peter.

“Hm?” Strange looks up, stopping his theoretical physics storytelling. “Ah, yes. I didn’t realize Hawking was so captivating for toddlers, he refused to sleep until we finished the chapter on the Casimir effect.”

“Well, that’s one of the few happy endings in there.”

Strange carefully moves himself up from the bed, placing the book on the nightstand. “Sorry for keeping you waiting so long.”

“It was like ten minutes. I usually keep everyone waiting for at least an hour during Board meetings and stuff. If I even turn up, that is.”

“I highly doubt it. Ms. Potts would hunt you down and serve your head on a platter in the next Board meeting.”

That startles out a laugh out of him – which is a small miracle considering his recent encounter – and he turns to leave the room again.

FRIDAY dims the lights just as Bob makes himself comfortable on his messy pile of blankets. Speaking of blankets, the freaky flying cape once again stays behind, nestled around Peter.

Tony takes in the scene before leaving the room and automatically goes straight back to the lab. It’s always been the place he would flee into, hiding from the world. Just him, his music, his bots and some supersciencengineering to do. Strange follows after him without comments and only speaks up when the doors close.

“I have some good news and some bad news.”

Tony sighs, sitting down by the workbench and gesturing at Stephen to do the same. “Figures. Go on then, hit me.”

He nods but then frowns, looking in between them in confusion. “No coffee? Are you sure?”

“Crap!” He knew he forgot about something. But there’s absolutely no way he’s going back for the beverages now. Chances are Rogers is still rebooting his tiny brain in there and he’s had enough of him for one day. Or one lifetime even. Coffee does sound good though…and he did promise the tea. Damn. “I’ll uh…be right back,” he moves to stand up. FRIDAY will give him heads up if Rogers is still loitering about.

“No need,” Strange stops him with a hand raised. “As I said, magic _does_ have a few perks – if you don’t mind?” he asks for permission.

 _He asks for permission_. To use magic. The amount of seconds it takes Tony to deal with that fact is insane. “Uhhh…okay? What do you h – oh,” he blinks at the cup of steaming hot coffee appearing out of nowhere on the workbench. “That’s…neat.”

“Indeed,” he smiles, taking a sip of his own tea. “The good news is that Peter’s condition was most definitely caused by a spell.”

“Spell’s better than a curse, right.”

“Which brings me to the bad news. I wasn’t able to narrow it down to the exact spell used, at least it wasn’t a match with anything I’ve researched so far. It is quite possible it was either a new spell or…a spell gone wrong.”

“So someone’s either going for a magical inventor or they fucked up.”

“Precisely.”

“And if it’s new, you have no way of simply dispelling it.”

“And if it was a screw up, then searching for the exact spell that caused it is like searching for a singular dust particle in the Sahara desert.”

“We’re back to where we started then. Fuck,” he sighs and sips on the surprisingly good coffee.

“I will head off to Kamar-Taj tomorrow to consult it with the other Masters. If neither that or the Asgardians can help, then we have to find the person responsible for the spell. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise what?”

“We might not be able to dispel it at all,” Strange admits with a pouty grimace. “And Peter will be stuck this way, growing up from a toddler again.”

“Yeah, that’d be…yeah. Can’t imagine explaining that to Ned _or_ May.”

“It might be helpful to give Deadpool some…instructions, perhaps? If he delivers the sorcerer with two katanas sticking out of their chest…,” he trails off while Tony groans.

He almost forgot about Wade and his trigger and blade-happy fingers. “I’ll give him a call.”

“Hm,” Strange hums, his cup of tea disappearing. “I will leave you to it then.”

Only then the wizard’s words finally register with him. “Wait…so…you won’t be here tomorrow,” Tony basically repeats the man’s words. “I mean, in New York? Who’s protecting your haunted house when you’re off to Hogwarts?”

Strange raises an eyebrow at that. “Wong will be available of course, why?”

Now that’s a really good question. Why is Tony asking? Oh that’s right, because there might be a loose HYDRA sorcerer lurking around here just waiting for his opportunity to raid the Compound. Best time to do that would definitely be when the Supreme Wizard of New York is an ocean and half a continent away.

No offense to Wong – Tony likes the bitch-faced sorcerer. He’s all gloomy and broody and never smiles, but Tony knows that at his core he’s a softie with a big, nerdy heart, big smile and a gargantuan crush on Beyoncé. And he chops aliens’ hands off with portals. What’s there not to like?

Oh right, he’s a sorcerer.

That’s usually enough of a reason in Tony’s mind. In this case though it’s even simpler - he doesn’t trust Wong. He doesn’t really know the man, definitely not enough to warrant any kind of actual trust and if his recent encounter reminded him of anything, it’s that huge bag of trust issues he has with people, rightfully so.

He wouldn’t go anywhere near the thought of trusting Strange either, no. But he’s seen the man fight Thanos and last more than the usual few seconds so if anything, he can entertain the thought of trusting his battle skills. And those might come in handy once HYDRA and their evil pet Voldemort come knocking on the door here to finish what they started.

“I…it’s just…how do I contact Wong if…you know. Big bad wizard portals in here and starts throwing fireballs and shit? And if Wong is left alone to protect this reality or whatever, then it’s not like he can come in here to lend a hand so…”

This time, Strange actually looks as surprised by Tony’s words as Tony feels about saying them. “Oh,” he clears his throat and stands up. “No need to worry about that. I’ve put up the defensive wards around the Compound, remember? If anyone let’s say…magical…tries getting past them, I will know,” he states and continues after inspecting Tony’s unconvinced cringe. “And I will portal here right away…if that counts as emergency portalling into the Compound and won’t end up with my ass shot into space?”

“No…I mean yes, that counts. Sure. That’s fine. Sounds like a plan. Okay,” he starts to ramble out loud. It’s completely logical and strategically sound…of course he can just portal in whenever. Then there are the wards…and spooky teal butterflies. Everyone would likely agree the Compound is currently an impenetrable fortress with both Tony’s security protocols and Strange’s magic.

Then again, everyone said Titanic was unsinkable as well and they all know how that turned out.

Tony doesn’t believe in _can’t_ and _won’t_ and _impossible_. Where there’s a will there’s a way and that annoying, futuristic part of him always starts by setting up the worst case scenarios. What if the wards won’t work like they should? What if Voldemort is more powerful than Strange and the wards won’t even faze him. What if Strange is too busy, or unavailable or…what if he’s too late?

“Tony?”

The doom scenarios fall into the background enough for Tony to appreciate the sound of his name being spoken in such a contrast to what Rogers made it sound like. Instead of angry, disapproving or disappointed, it’s just…hesitant. A little worried, maybe? But in the end, it’s just that – his name, at its outmost simplicity.

How refreshing.

“Yeah?”

“You…didn’t hear a word of what I just said, did you?” he asks and somehow it doesn’t sound like an accusation. It’s almost amused, in fact.

“Uhm…no. Sor - ”

“That’s alright. I should have realized…anyway, as I was saying, I understand the magical threat is what must be worrying you the most. FRIDAY mentioned some of the defensive protocols this place has and I doubt a cockroach could make it through the windows right now, let alone HYDRA agents. Not in one piece anyway.”

“I sure as hell hope so,” Tony blurts out, still a bit stuck on that bit where Strange didn’t make a scene about Tony not listening to him.

“Magical threats are a different story. While you do have the uh…lovely Miss Maximoff here, she is the only line of defense in all things mystical. I can’t however speak for her prowess in dealing with _actual_ mystical threats so it would probably be for the best if one of our sorcerers stayed here day and night until the threat is neutralized.”

“ _One of your sorcerers_? Yeah, that’s not happening. Letting you or maybe, _possibly_ Wong inside the Compound right now is one thing – letting some random Hogwarts student in is an absolute no go.”

Strange just blinks at him for ten solid seconds, to a point Tony wonders if he didn’t astral project himself to the other side of the universe or something. “I thought…never mind. I suppose…me or _maybe, possibly Wong_ could stay here then. Switch between the Sanctum…it’s not going to work tomorrow though.”

“Well…we’re just going to have to survive one day then,” Tony says with a twisted grin that reflects the ball of twisted nerves he’s back to pushing down and away from his thoughts.

It’s actually a great idea for him or Wong to stay here for the time being, be on hand in case anyone makes a move against Peter. He’s not quite at a point where he would beg the wizard to forget about his trip to Kamar-Taj and just…stay here. But the more he thinks about it, the more it makes sense for Strange to be here and help him protect the kid.

Peter likes the damn wizard as both a teenager and a toddler and so far, Strange was nothing but helpful with him and the whole situation. Hell, he’s taken care of the kid _and_ the dog for hours while Tony’s been napping away today…trust might be a strong word, but there’s some lighter synonym Tony might be ready to use in regards to the man.

Titan and everything that happened in the wake of it hangs like doom itself over the two of them ever since the snap was reverted and the battered wizard reappeared with everyone else.

Strange did nothing wrong. Deep down, locked away and guarded by all of his insecurities, Tony knows that. But every time he looks at the wizard, he’s instantly reminded of Titan.

The lost battle with Thanos, the way everyone started to slowly disintegrate after the Soul stone snapped into action, the look on Peter’s face as he faded away, crying…pleading…holding onto him for dear life.

The months he spent on the Benatar, slowly wasting away. The horror that crept up on him as everything started running out and he thought that was it – he would die just like that and in the end it would all be his fault because if it weren’t for him, Thanos would never get his greedy hands on the Time stone, ever.  

Only he would. Tony knows he would – because _there was no other way_. The words rang like both a nightmare and salvation in his head the entire time after Titan and until Thanos drew his last breath. Sometimes they kept him awake, other times they lulled him to sleep. They kept him waking up every morning or whatever the fuck o’clock it was in space. They kept him fighting with every fiber of his being until the end.

 _There was no other way_.

Most of the time, he can’t look the wizard in the eyes because he fears to see a glimpse of it again - the terror and grief already written all over them as he delivered those words. Tony looks at him and sometimes it’s the only thing he can see – the guilt, the sad smile, the helplessness as he too slowly dusts into the wind.

It’s easier to be angry and mean because anything else would mean Tony would have to face the man and with him, all the demons of the past year. None of which are Strange’s fault. They are all of Tony’s own making, some he carried over from as far as Battle of New York. And Strange is the one who defeated most of them already.

Tony and the Avengers might have fought the final battle, but it was Strange who really saved the day. And all the days that followed since. He found the one and only way to defeat Thanos and he can’t be blamed for the fact the only way to do it was to let him win first.

That’s just fucking ironic and cruel and everything else that Tony believes reality to be.

“I can leave the Cloak here. It’s surprisingly good at annoying evil sorcerers and if nothing else, it can get Peter out of harm’s way,” Strange suggests and Tony starts suspecting the man of still having the Time stone somewhere, because he’s just full of good ideas lately.

“The carpet is also really good at annoying _me_ …not sure I want to keep that thing around, it doesn’t listen to anyone,” he pouts.

“Sadly, that’s very true. It doesn’t listen to me either, if that’s any consolation. It does whatever it wants most of the time…luckily for us, it likes Peter so it shouldn’t be too difficult persuading it to stay behind.”

“Don’t you need the thing? I mean…you two seem kinda attached.”

Strange chuckles, nodding. "We do, don't we? In reality we will survive one day without each other just fine. I don't expect any trouble in Kamar-Taj anyway so it can safely take a day off from me and spend it here, keeping the kid company. If you won't mind, that is."

The damn carpet is battle-efficient and loyal as fuck, Tony will give it that. It's also too sentient for a thing with no visible brain and that's always suspicious at best...but the wizard's cape is still better than nothing.

"It can stay. If an evil sorcerer attacks, I'll just yeet it at them." 

“Fair enough. Chances are, it will _voluntarily_ yeet itself.”

“But if the cape misbehaves, I cannot guarantee it won’t end up in the diamond shredder,” Tony points at the gigantic contraption in the corner of the lab that he uses to scrap metal in and occasionally threatens the bots with.

“Hm, I wonder if that would work,” Strange gives the shredder an intrigued look.

“Do you want me to try for science?” he grins and for once, he’s absolutely mischievously serious.

Strange shrugs and matches the grin with a tiny one of his own. “Only if it misbehaves.”

“Deal.”

“Well then,” he stands up and nods. “I’ll go give it the great news and portal back to the Sanctum. As soon as I’m done in Kamar-Taj, I will return…hopefully with some good news, too.”

“I better call Deadpool about the _no sorcerer stabbing_ policy.”

“Please. Good night, Tony,” he gives him a little bow like the medieval wizard he is and walks away.

“Night, wizard,” he replies with only half the usual sass and watches him leave the lab while FRIDAY already dials up Wade for him.

“ _Yo, speak loud and quick, gold-alloy man_!” is Wade’s version of a greeting. “ _My hand is still tiny, so Dopinder has to hold the phone to my ear while he’s chasing a HYDRA get-away truck in high-speed_!”

Tony face-palms, sinking against the workbench. “Put me on speaker-phone and stop fucking around with me, Wade!”

“ _Ugh, fine. What’s up? We’re kinda bu…oh never mind. Val just slashed their tires mid-air, we’re good. Go get ‘em, boys_!”

“Yeah about that, we need the guy responsible for what happened to Peter alive and breathing.”

“ _How can you be alive and not breathe_?”

Tony frowns at the phone. “Is that Drax?!”

There’s a pause on the other side, followed by a quiet: “ _No_.”

“We need to have a talk, FRIDAY,” he looks up.

“ _If by any chance Drax arrived with the others this morning, he was moving so slowly I could not see him_ ,” she responds.

“ _See? I told you it worked_!” Drax exclaims.

“Whatever. Wade?”

“ _Fine! Alive…and breathing. Is there any policy on missing body parts? Or do you need the HYDRA wizard with all his limbs still attached? Val sharpened her sword and it would be a huge waste not to slash it through more flesh._ ”

“What, Valkyrie chops your arm off and you’re suddenly best of friends?”

“ _Oh man, I liked her style so much I let her borrow my katanas so she can triple-wield! Hell, I would let her chop my other arm off, too_.”

Tony sighs, placing the phone down on the workbench. “Great. I’m happy you’re making new friends, just make sure you don’t kill or chop up whoever cast that spell or the whole mission is a bust. Other than that…chop away.”

“ _Sweet! Love the attitude, so dark and so appropriate to this situation. Why aren’t **you** in charge of X-men_?!”

“In charge of _who_?”

“ _Oh that’s right, still different studios and shit. Oh well. Guess we might as well give Eddie a call – is he still banned from New York_?”

“Who?!”

“ _Hah! Never mind, I’m just proving a point. Guys! We’re totally getting Venom on board, the dude **adores** Peter, he will eat all the damn bad guys_!”

“Bye, Wade!” Tony slams on the End call button and wonders if he should just retire right now right here after all.

 

* * *

 

 

“Wong?!” Stephen barges into the Sanctum, immediately yelling into the silence.

Something is very, _very_ wrong.

“If it’s another exorcism, I’m opting out. You owe me,” Wong appears up on the stairs.

“Wha – no. It’s not an exorcism. I _think_. It’s probably worse.”

“Hm. I’m opting out of it then.”

“Can you _please_ first hear me out before opting out of potentially dangerous, volatile magical emergency?!” he pleads with him.

Wong’s squint only intensifies but he nods, frowning a second later. “Where’s the Cloak?”

“In the Compound…irrelevant. Do you remember the place-holder magic Mordo taught me?”

“You mean mundane magic? We were all taught th - ”

“Yes, yes…you remember what form I use it in?”

“The butterflies? Yeah. Fancy. A bit diva, no surprise there. Why?”

“It’s ap… _diva_? Wh – pfff…what’s that’s supposed to mean?! It’s just a butterfly!”

“Uhuh. We all use geometrical images, plain, simple…stationary. You’re using sparkly, glittering butterflies that flap their wings and actually fly around. _Diva_.”

Stephen glares at him and any other time he’d probably argue that animated mundane magic is much easier to imagine and use so sparkly flying butterflies are completely practical. There’s no time for arguing now. “Forget it. Have you ever heard of…I dunno. _Mundane_ magic doing something it shouldn’t really be even possible for it to do?”

“Like what? It doesn’t do anything in the first place so…”

“That’s kinda my point. The butterfly…it…appeared in the Compound.”

Wong’s uninterested stare suddenly sharpens. “ _Appeared_?”

“Tony caught one playing with Peter in the morning. _Playing with it_. The thing was playing with the kid and then it flew around some more before disappearing.”

“Hm.”

One of these days, he’s going to choke Wong into showing more than one emotion at a time. “That’s it? _Hm_? I know mundane magic can linger after using it – _momentarily_. This was _hours_ after I put up the defensive wards. Hours!”

“Interesting.”

He groans and flails his arms. “I swear to all the Vishanti I will send you to the Dark Dimension, Wong! I’m freaking out over here, if you know something then speak!”

“Just a minute, let me bathe some more in your uneducated and therefore unnecessary suffering.”

“Peter was right. You and MJ _would_ be best friends. I’m voting her next for the Sorcerer Supreme so she can deal with you on daily basis,” he glares at Wong.

“Mundane magic is mostly used with defensive spells,” Wong begins, ignoring his quip.

“I already knew that!”

“All different kinds of defensive spells. From the very basic to the most complex. Did you know that the best defensive spells don’t even have any hand signs to use while conjuring them up?”

“They are abstract and thrive on imagination alone, yes.”

“There’s your answer then.”

“What? That’s not…I mean… _what_?!” he blurts out, trying to follow Wong’s reasoning. And failing.

“You can cast spells by just imagining them into existence. With nothing but a thought. I’m guessing that’s what you did and didn’t even realize it. Also no surprise there,” Wong mumbles, shaking his head.

“It still doesn’t explain the butterfly,” he skips over the sorcerer’s entire argument and back to the mundane magic that shouldn’t be doing any of what Tony described.

Even if he somehow wished and imagined for Peter to be safe and protected and cast some kind of spell across half of New York, the butterfly or butterflies would only appear for few seconds. Not for however long it was playing with Peter and only disappearing after Tony came into the picture.

It’d be quick. BOOM – spell, butterflies and then nothing. It’d be gone before Peter could even clap his hands at the magic show.

“Unless the butterfly _is_ the spell,” Wong smirks at his likely very confused, wide-eyed expression. “That’s why I correct you when you call it place-holder magic. It’s _mundane_ – it can’t do any harm, can’t really defend anything either but that doesn’t mean it can’t have other, _mundane_ properties.”

“So…you’re saying I unconsciously conjured a semi-sentient butterfly just so it can entertain Peter?!”

“It’s not what I’m saying but I would definitely not put it past you. Honestly, _you_ should know what kind of spell it is because you can’t really conjure anything unconsciously. It must have been very conscious and very vivid in your mind. The purpose of the spell, I mean. Here,” he portals a book out of Kamar-Taj…one of the few bad habits he learnt from Stephen. “Read all about it,” he shoves the huge book into his arms and turns to leave.

“Oh…kay. Thanks Wong!” he calls after him with all the sarcasm he can muster. “I _do_ so enjoy our little chats. Your advice is impeccable as always.”

The only answer he gets is an amused chuckle, so he portals to his room and gets ready for bed. Time for some good old astral-studying before he leaves for Kamar-Taj.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Certain someone moves into the Compound, Avengers assemble and a butterfly saves the day :3
> 
> ...I just realized that the 4th wall bit with Wade is no longer valid since in related news, Disney acquired 21st Century Fox :D Damn you Disney, already ruining my plots :D ...then again, we better have Deadpool in the Avengers movies now for real :3


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! ~ So...now that I am back from the pits of hell that was Endgame and my depression was successfully cured by the new Spiderman trailer (that movie is everything we need and deserve, you heard it here first), here's the continuation of this lil' fic. 
> 
> As you may safely expect, there will be NO spoilers for Endgame here <3 
> 
> Thank you all for your lovely comments and kudos, they always make my day! ^^ Now by all means, enjoy! <3
> 
> Un-beta'd as always and since most of it was written AFTER Endgame (I couldn't write a word before :'D) any dire errors I blame on that movie ;D

“Tank!” Peter claps his hands excitedly when Tony returns from the midday snack hunt. He hates to admit it, but the damn nickname is starting to grow on him.

“God I hope he’ll keep calling you that after he’s back to teen spider mode,” Rhodey beams at the toddler.

“Pidey mo!”

“Okay. How do you turn the cuteness off on this thing?” he chuckles and accepts the plate of cookies from Tony, completely ignoring his glare.

“You don’t, that’s the problem. It’s been just few days and I can already feel my brain melting under the weight of all the cuteness. But you usually sober up when changing the diapers, no cuteness there,” Tony tells him, sitting down next to Peter on the play mat.

“Uh, yeah, I’m opting outta that.”

“Thanks for the help, you’re a real friend,” he snorts and steals two cookies off the plate, offering one to Peter’s impatient, flailing little hands.

“Hey man, I’m just the cool uncle Rhodey – and cool uncles don’t change the kid’s diapers when visiting.”

“Wh… _you’re_ the cool uncle? When did that happen? I don’t remember fighting you for the title.”

“You don’t have to fight me for it; you’re the cool _dad_ , Tony.”

While Tony’s stuck processing that information, Bruce walks in with glasses of milk. “What does that make me?”

“You’re the cool aunt of course,” Rhodey winks at him.

Bruce shakes his head, awkwardness seeping into his features as he distributes the drinks. “Uhuh. What’s with the creepy cape?” he eyes the Cloak, hovering behind Peter.

Tony snaps out of his haze as Bruce hands him their two glasses. “Don’t call it creepy or it will smother you in your sleep. It’s on magical bodyguard duty,” he squints at the innocently fluttering outerwear.

“Isn’t it usually attached to a wizard?” Bruce watches it with just as much suspicion.

“Usually,” is all the answer Tony offers. No need to explain to his two best friends how he nearly resorted to begging said wizard to stay here and protect the kid. And how the magic cape was the only option for today.

The other thing he won’t be sharing with any other living souls is the fact that the cape’s presence _does_ ease a lot of the stress and anxiety that kept building inside his head the past two days.

He focuses back on the snack and frowns. “What are we, five?! I haven’t drunk milk since I was _his_ age!” he waves at Peter. Okay, that might be a lie. He did indulge in milk and cookies on some bad nights even as an older kid…Jarvis’s home-baked cookies were to die for.

“Time to re-live the experience then,” Rhodey chuckles.

“I’m pretty sure I’m lactose intolerant.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re lying. Drink your milk and eat your cookie, Stank.”

He does. “I hate you,” he pouts at them all, making them nearly choke from laughter.

 

 

After the babysitting club is dismissed and Peter falls asleep in his newly remodeled blanket fort in the corner of the lab, Tony watches him for a while, his thoughts plagued by uncertainty once again. Everything seems so peaceful around here that it would probably fool anyone into thinking they’re all safe and sound.

Everything was all nice and peaceful back in the park during their leisurely morning run as well and then Bruce crash-landed in the Sanctum and an alien spaceship parked around the block.

Yeah. Nobody is fooling him anymore. Ever. He is doomed to live on edge for the rest of his days. Considering what that does to his blood-pressure, it probably won’t be for that long anyway.

With the lab now constantly flooded by Peter’s carefree laughter, he almost wishes Mr. Hydra Wizard would show up and turn _him_ into a kid for at least a week so he could enjoy the blissful obliviousness at least one more time before kicking off. But one toddler energy in the room is more than enough.

This whole situation stirred something buried and long forgotten inside of him. That elusive, ridiculous thought that crossed his mind once or twice throughout his life. He always successfully extinguished it with a rapid-fire of self-loathing and doubt and an extensive list of cons and bad character traits – but there was a time he considered this.

Being a father.

When he looks up from the project he started to pass the time and finds the blanket fort very much empty, he remembers exactly why that would be such a bad idea.

Did he snooze or something?! “Oh for fu…FRIDAY?!”

“ _Don’t worry boss. Peter is taking a cruise around the Compound with the Cloak. They first went into the kitchen where Peter drank some water and then…he appeared to have too much fun flying so they are circling the nearby corridors_.”

“And you didn’t tell me _why_?”

“ _I did. Peter said something as well. But in both our cases you replied with – and I quote: ‘hmmm yeah this won’t work, too much shit math’ and then ‘I’ll fix it no problem’_.”

He looks down at the project and he sure did fix the math – and was so deep into the sciencing that he ignored both Peter and Fri in the process. Guess he can add that to a new list of all the good reasons why he should never be a father.

“Right. Tell the bots to spray me with fire-extinguishers next time I zone out, thank you. Speaking of which…where are the bots?”

“ _With Bob, chasing them of course_.”

“ ** _Of course_**!” he flails and with a groan he gets up and leaves the lab to find the hunt party, mumbling a few chosen curses aimed at himself under his breath as he stomps around the halls, checking the rooms too.

“ _Skip this common room._ _Boss? Boss_!”

By the time FRIDAY’s distressed call registers with his misfiring brain, he’s already five steps inside the room and frozen to the spot. The room is full of equally frozen Roguevengers, staring at him like it’s the first time they’ve seen him in months.

Oh wait…it is the first time they’ve seen him in months. Some of them anyway.

“Hey Tony,” Natasha recovers first and goes back to reading her book.

Fucking perfect. Of all the hundred rooms in this base, he has to mindlessly walk into _this_ one.

“Hi,” he blurts out and slips into blank mode. “Bye.” And maybe sass mode, too.

“Yo, wait! You wanna join in? We’re playing some weird-ass game with Rocket. What’s it called?” _Birdson_ waves him in from the couch, eyes not tearing off the screen.

“Pub gee,” Bucky answers, also too busy with the controller.

“Wait what? I thought it was Overwatch!”

“Oh. That explains why there are no pubs anywhere.”

“Dude. PUBG is a…never mind. You’re killing me, man. Shit! You’re _actually killing me_! Stop!” he furiously taps all over the controller, elbowing the former HYDRA assassin in the process.

“I don’t think so,” Bucky smirks and apparently kills him since Wilson stops his flailing and melts into the couch with a sigh of surrender.

Tony watches them with a slightly amused stare and rolls his eyes. He doesn’t have time to deal with these two idiots. But as far as Roguevengers go, they are the harmless ones. Funny how he can look at the man who killed his parents and think harmless now. The thing was realizing this is _not_ the man that killed his parents. If only _someone_ told him about a certain December HYDRA mission earlier.

“No…thanks. And that’s CS:GO you’re playing by the way,” he indulges them a little anyway.

“CS:GO? Fucking hell,” Bucky glares at his play-pal with an expression one could easily mistake for the actual Winter Soldier.

“Wait a minute,” Tony shakes his head and rounds a particularly constipated Rogers to get to the couch, where he steals Sam’s headphones. “Ratchet?!”

“ _It’s Rocket! You…never mind. You either join the match or get me Birdemic back on the line, we need to turn this shit around. No way Groot and Fancyhand are defeating us_!”

“Aren’t you supposed to be, I don’t know…hunting evil HYDRA wizards with Deadpool?!”

“ _We’re taking a break. We ran out of vodka and Pool is still regrowing an arm…this some crazy sh – did he just three sixty no scope’d me?! Through the fucking wall?!_ ”

Tony cringes at the loud outburst and throws the headphones back to _Birdemic_ while giving the smirking assassin to his left a tiny glare. “Continue,” he leaves them to their game and only then notices he’s being stared at by his two least favorite people in the whole world. He gives them the fakest grin he can come up with and decides it’s time get the hell out of here.

“We were about to watch a movie,” Rogers digs himself out of the haze and gets in his way. “You could join us, bring Peter along. It’s a Disney thing so it shouldn’t be an issue.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Good,” Wanda scoffs, not even bothering to use the remote and switching through the TV channels using magic.

Tony could remind her that outside of training and emergencies, the use of her abilities is strictly prohibited in public areas of the Compound but he hates repeating himself. Besides – it will be much more effective to have FRIDAY completely mess the TV up whenever  the remote isn’t used.

With his newest petty plan in mind, he tries rounding the supersoldier again, only for him to back away, keeping himself between Tony and the only exit out of the room.

Bucky was right – there need to be more exits around here.

“Wanda didn’t mean that – just wait!” he puts up his hands as if that’s supposed to make him look non-threatening. “We haven’t had a proper movie night in…years! Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“Fun is not the word,” he mumbles, his uninterested façade slowly losing the fight with the anxiety creeping in. “I have to go find Peter anyway, so if you’ll excuse me…”

“Find him? What do you mean…you don’t know where he is?” Rogers frowns, still not getting the hint and letting Tony through.

“He lost the kid…told you that’s gonna happen,” Wanda chuckles continues on to sputter more nonsense but Tony doesn’t hear any of it.

All he hears it _lost the kid_.

And he did. He lost him not too long ago on an awfully orange planet with an awfully funky gravity and a lot more dust than there was before they arrived there.

_“I lost the kid.”_

It was the first thing he said when he stepped out of the Benatar back on Earth - he doesn’t even remember who he was saying it to but it felt like the most important information at the time. The kid, the Guardians…the wizard. _Lost_.

“Tony?”

He almost chokes on his own breath, stifling the rising panic and the anger at hearing Rogers call him like this again. He needs to get Peter. Now. No time to suffocate from a panic attack or break his already mangled hand against Roger’s face.

If he can just find the kid and hold him close and reassure himself that he’s fine and they’re all fine and nobody’s lost then –

“Ah, there you are,” Vision floats into the room out of nowhere, his gentle smile startling some sense back into Tony’s clouded mind. “I should have known that was the reason behind the sudden change of course,” he adds and opens up the door to one unstoppably giggling, flying toddler and his gang of followers in the form of the bots, Bob…and an entire assortment of teal butterflies fluttering around them.

Tony lets out a long, shuddering breath and swiftly walks around the now stunned Rogers and holds out his hands towards Peter. To his surprise, the cape doesn’t take any evasive action or hasty maneuvers to fly the kid away from him – as Tony half-expected it to do – and flies Peter into his waiting arms instead. Forgetting all about why he hates being handed things and babies and other cute and not so cute things, he disentangles Peter from the suspiciously helpful fabric and holds him against his chest, looking into his huge brown eyes.

“Hey kiddo,” he whispers, not quite trusting his voice. “Had a nice flight?”

“Tank!” Peter bounces happily, hands glued to Tony’s scruffy goatee.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he chuckles, hating how broken and unsteady it sounds, even to his own ears.

Peter nods almost as if understanding and lets his head fall on Tony’s shoulder, hands tucked around his chest in a tiny hug that Tony has to physically restrain himself from returning in full strength. Peter could handle it in his Spider Teen body, but Spider Baby body is very fragile and very squishable so he just gently pulls him closer and wills his rapidly beating heart to calm down.

“He was having a blast,” Vision beams. “So much I simply had to join in.”

Tony can’t help but let out another chuckle, this time a lot more believable, and watches Vision stand by the metal gang, inspecting the puppy with his never-ending curiosity. It’s the combination of Peter in his arms, JARVIS’s voice, his metal slash puppy family right there and the small group of butterflies flying in to join the three others that must have appeared around him while he was too distracted with his inner panic to notice; his heart no longer feels like jumping out of his chest and his brain stops throwing harrowing nightmarish scenarios back at him.

They’re all safe. Safe as can be in room with Rogers and Maximoff anyway.

“How…cute,” Vision tells Bob, who’s busy with jumping up and down around the android.

“What is _that_?!”

Wanda’s slightly quivering voice peaks Tony’s interest, so he tears his eyes off of the newly befriended puppy-android couple to see what the witch is going on about. He’s only momentarily startled by her crimson magic flowing visibly around her fingers and eyes, before he realizes the source of her apparent distress.

He rolls his eyes and moves his left hand in front of himself palm up, while the other still supports the resting toddler. It’s just for effect but his inner science guy also takes it as an opportunity to test this oh so very useless mundane magic. “Butterflies? Wanda. Wanda? Butterflies,” he does the introduction with a smirk, just as the fluttering magical insects converge around his outstretched hand and land on top of his palm one by one. “Mundane magic? My ass…,” he mumbles.

Natasha, sporting the same wide-eyed expression as her witchy couch neighbor, watches the gathering for a moment before snapping back to whatever spy mode that lets her dismiss unlikely magic use and just shrugs, returning back to her book. Is that _Fifty shades of fucking gray_?! Nope. It’s the _cover_ of Fifty shades of gray…but the book is a lot slimmer than that. Not that Tony would know or anything – but he does remember Natasha’s sneaky reading techniques.

“Don’t you find that weird?!” Wanda asks the now uninterested spy as if it was a criminal offence not to care about this highly dangerous situation.

“Yeah, it’s the big Butterfly Pandemic of 2019! Run for cover everyone, they’ve invaded the Compound!” Tony rolls his eyes. “They’re butterflies, not assassins for crying out loud…”

“They’re magical!” she points out, angry streams of red magic flaring around her.

“Yep. And?”

“Since when can you do magic,” she squints her eyes at him.

“I can’t. But I know a wizard or two who can – I did suggest balloon animals, but apparently he’s on a whole new level of that gig. Pretty cool, huh?” he grins and with the last few warm wing flutters, the little butterfly army disappears into thin air. “Interesting,” he thinks out loud, turning away from the fuming witch. “Alright, hunting party’s over kids. Let’s go find something to eat, hm? What’dya think, lil’ guy?” he looks down at Peter, who just nods, not even bothering to look up from where he’s comfortably nestled against his chest.

The bots bolt around through the doors with Bob and Vision following close behind, which leaves the Cloak – currently hovering next to Rogers with its hems folded like arms again. That thing’s human mannerism is freaking Tony out…a lot less than he thought.

“Let’s move it, cape or we’ll eat all the ice-cream without you.”

It’s a ridiculous prompt but the Cloak seemingly gives the remaining people in the room a pointed look with its collar and flies out of the room in pursuit of the gang without giving Tony any more troubles. It must be having a bad day or something to be so obedient all of a sudden.

“YEAH! LOOK AT THAT! WHO’S YOUR DADDY NOW! WHOOOHOOOO!” Birdemic Wilson breaks the tension in the room with the shout, jumping on the couch in victory.

“You just killed me _once_ , asshat, calm down,” Bucky rolls his eyes, a playful smile breaking his features – both of them completely oblivious to all the drama that just transpired in the room.

Tony chuckles, shaking his head and with a fleeting look –  that hopefully has the same mood as the Cloak’s little stare a moment ago – at the finally speechless Rogers and Wanda, he walks out to join the food scavengers.

 

 

Vision makes them sandwiches and they do indulge in a hefty portion of Hulk’s fabled ice-cream – that’s somehow everyone’s favorite one…he’ll have to look into that. For now, he simply enjoys Peter’s babbling and Vision’s endearing way that he handles the puppy while preparing some food for him too.

Sometimes he forgets that Vision doesn’t have too many experiences with anything other than the Avengers and the Compound. He would seldom go out in public, even after having the meat suit that would successfully prevent all of New York from staring at him. So puppies and kids is a big unknown for him and just watching the process of his curiosity working up towards learning everything and anything about the unknown is something Tony was mesmerized since he witnessed JARVIS do the same thing as nothing but few one’s and zero’s.

Sometimes he forgets Vision almost didn’t make it in the end. And that everything that was left of his first baby AI could have been the broken husk of a body Thanos left behind after retrieving the Mind stone. But here he is, Mind stone and everything so the joke’s on the big purple son of a bitch.

“Have you decided yet?” Vision startles him out of his thoughts, not looking at Tony. He has Bob lying peacefully across his lap and is observing the content pup as he gently runs his hand over the short, back fur. “Where are you going to move to?”

And that’s another thing about Vision. He might be half-Ultron, which shows every now and then but he’d argue the bigger part of him is definitely JARVIS. And that part knows him so well it sometimes scares Tony. It makes sense of course – JARVIS had seen him at his best and his worst and at his later years, he would often do things without Tony ever needing to tell him to. All the AI needed was one look at him and somehow he figured out exactly what to do.

He misses that sometimes. FRIDAY is a slightly different breed of awesome – and she is, by all means, a wonderful addition to the AI slash bot family. JARVIS…he had that special something – not only the voice that calmed him down from nightmares since he was three years old – but the way he talked to Tony, the way he clicked right into his mad engineering genius life…so much that it felt like losing part of his very own body when Ultron destroyed him.

Not that anyone would ever understand. _So JARVIS died, boo hoo, he wasn’t real or anything so stop moping about_. The Avengers didn’t exactly phrase it like that...although they might as well had. They only lost a security program that also served as their personal google and order-out service. Tony lost a friend, his science pal, his _family_. And nobody could care less.

“Not really,” Tony answers, knowing that there’s no evading the question when it comes to Vision. No need to pretend, no need to hide…Vision _knows_ , so what’d be the point? “Outside of the city…somewhere quiet. With a lake and a forest and the nearest neighbor a few miles away. Preferably without any weekly bad guy forecasts on top of yearly world-ending crises. Am I going for too much? I am, aren’t I? Oh well…old man can hope, right?”

“Certainly,” he looks up at Tony with that godforsaken gentle smile of his that tugs at Tony’s heartstrings as painfully as all his care-free memories before Thanos snapped his world in half. “I…hope you will find the perfect home. And you can always have FRIDAY filter out any world-ending or bad-guy related news.”

“Huh. You’re right. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“ _Simple ideas are what you have us for, boss_ ,” FRIDAY chimes in and the way she keeps on referring to her and Vision as _us_ quickly made it onto the list of things that cause his heart to hurt. “ _We count on you for the genius ones_.”

“Sounds good,” he smiles, looking down to find Peter dead asleep in his lap, mouth wide open and a spoonful of ice-cream forgotten and melting down on the Thor-themed bib. That’s one use of Thor’s theme – along with maybe Thor-themed diapers – that Tony will allow. “Right. Bed time.”

He discards the spoon and the remnants of ice-cream into the bowl and carefully scoops Peter up into his arms and stands up.

“You are very good with him,” Vision says, watching him with a look Tony cannot read no matter how expressive it seems on Vision’s usually barely animated face.

“I’m n - ”

“You are,” he repeats almost like a command, eyes staring holes through Tony. “You always take care of everyone around you – no matter if they deserve it or not. I only wish…I wish you will allow someone to do the same for you one day,” he adds with a sad smile and goes back to petting the peacefully snoozing puppy.

Tony stares at him for a solid minute, dumbstruck by the words. Before he can turn around to tuck Peter into bed and then have a proper existential crisis for the rest of the evening, the alarm goes off, startling the puppy and the baby-puppy out of sleep.

“FRIDAY?”

“ _It’s a call to assemble from Kitty-Cat, boss_.”

“Oh you…savage you,” he comments on her brisk usage of Fury’s newest nickname and sighs in relief.

“ _Deadpool called for reinforcements, all hands on deck required_ ,” she adds.

“Sounds like HYDRA is gonna have a rough night. Remember, no evil wizard killing…and by remember I really just mean _remind Maximoff_.”

Vision nods and phases away through the walls, much to Bob’s dismay.

“Okay, puppies. Let’s go watch a movie since you’re back to hundred percent awake, thanks for that by the way, Fri.”

“ _My apologies, boss. I will adjust the security protocol for assemble calls to be mindful of sleeping children from now on_.”

“You do that.”

Hopefully, it won’t be necessary after tonight.

 

 

They watch two episodes of Penguins of Madagascar before Peter’s back to sleepy again and Tony finds himself walking through the silent corridors of the Compound back to their rooms, the Cloak following without a fuss.

It’s been really well-behaved the whole day and Tony’s starting to suspect the carpet of plotting some ultimate pranking vengeance or something.

Either that or it already put things into motion and Tony’s about to walk into a bucket of shit spilling onto his head or some good old-fashioned rotten eggs in his shoes. Even Strange struggles to keep the sentient fashion statement in check and fails most of the time.

If Tony didn’t know any better, he’d swear the Cloak is one of _his_ very own inventions. Flying, sassy, trolling piece of clothing sounds right up his alley.

The lights in the hall flicker off, stopping Tony dead in his tracks. “Fri?”

“ _There seemed to have been a short-circuit in the block four generator, boss_.”

“Short…you know how many short-circuits there were in my tech around here or the Tower?!”

“ _None_.”

“Exactly!” he grits his teeth and with a quick glance behind him, he starts backing away to the corner just few feet away. The cape follows him, inching ever closer to him. “Talk to me, Fri,” he prompts her, lowering his voice when Peter starts to stir.

“ _I am not detecting any disturbance in the security system_.”

Even with one block down, the security should be up and running no problem – with FRIDAY still responsive, there’s no doubt about that. What if there’s a disturbance she can’t detect though?

Like magic.

It’s subtle and to most it wouldn’t even be recognizable as anything out of the ordinary, but Tony’s spent an uncomfortable amount of time around people practicing all sorts of magic. Loki, Wanda, Strange, Wong – especially Wong during the after-Titan period. The barely audible sizzle of magic pierces the silence of the hall and Tony knows what’s going to follow even before the circular shape starts forming at the other end of the corridor.

“Fri? Total lockdown, now. Call the Avengers back,” he hurls out, eying the slowly forming portal. “Cloak?” he gestures towards the dangerously fluttering fabric in front of him and the proper usage of its title is enough to make it do an all too human double-take. “Get Peter and Bob outta here, now.”

The Cloak swiftly moves in to scoop Peter out of Tony’s hold, picking up the growling puppy as well but makes no move to fly away.

“What are you waiting for? Go!” Tony commands, smacking the nanite casing onto his chest, letting the armor start forming around himself.

The Cloak finally rounds the corner, hopefully choosing an alternate route into the lab where FRIDAY could assist them further. The portal is wonky and takes a few more seconds to properly open as if creating it was somehow very difficult for the caster.

“Fri?”

“ _I’m here, boss. But I have lost all control and surveillance over this block_ ,” she replies through the helmet this time.

The armor completes just as a hooded figure steps through the still unstable-looking portal and Tony switches into battle mode faster than he thought he was still able to.

“Ah…Tony Stark. It’s a pleasure,” the man speaks, the emergency lighting kicking in to reveal a fairly young and a completely unknown face.

It’s not his face that strikes Tony’s interest though. “Is that a fucking Tommy gun?”

The man rumbles out a chuckle, letting his hood fall down, revealing locks of silver hair. “What can I say…can’t give up old habits. You like it?” he moves the gun forward to offer a better look.

“Old habits? What are you, ninety? Would explain the ancient tech…and the Targaryen hair,” he quips back, stalling for time.

“It’s complicated. But there’s no need to bother you with my tragic back-story, Mr. Stark. I was kinda rudely interrupted before…can’t believe I’m saying this…by a _puppy_. And some omnipresent girl’s voice yelling _initiating insta-kill mode_. Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. Now, I’ll just take the itsy bitsy spider and be on my way.”

“Yeah, sorry. It’s past itsy bitsy junior’s curfew. Come back on Saturday, we’ll be having spaghetti night,” Tony glares at him from behind the helmet.

The man nods, sighing. “As I suspected. We’ll do it the hard way then.”

“My favorite way,” Tony growls and initiates _his_ insta-kill mode, raining repulsor and bullet fire across the corridor, target locked.

Instead of the onslaught blasting the man into a burning pile of ash, it bounces off a circular magic shield the man conjures up with his other hand while raising the Tommy gun.

“My turn,” he grins and takes a shot.

What kind of an idiot comes into a fight with Iron Man wielding a Tommy gun?!

That’s what Tony is thinking before the shot not only pierces his armor nearly through just under his shoulder, but the force of it is enough to smash him back against the wall.

Fucking. Magic.

A lone butterfly appears out of nowhere again as if to block the assault. It might have scared off Rogers and rattle some Roguvenger nerves, but bullets is clearly where this magic trick’s usefulness ends.

Tony brings up the shield as the gun spins into full action, the rattle of bullets hard and painful against the armor.

The damn shield withstood a blast from the Power stone, hell the whole armor survived a moon shot at him from the fucking orbit and yet this ancient looking gun is slowly but surely piercing through it no matter how many extra nanite layers he employs to stop them.

“Not bad,” the wizard slash Mafioso admits, stopping the carnage for a second. “Let’s dial it up a notch then,” he flicks his free hand, magicky spirals and circles surrounding the gun.

Tony only has a second to decide – he can either try to sneak an attack while the wizard is preoccupied with his tricks, or he can focus on fortifying his defense.

If that gun shoots anything more powerful than it already had, there’s no defense he can come up with so he chooses his usual plan – attack.

The repulsor shot makes the man stumble and dodge out of the way, so Tony presses forward.

The wizard is not amused and with a quiet growl and some quick magic shields, he deflects the attack again, seizing the first opportunity to shoot back.

The air shifts, the pressure and sheer power of magic used by the man makes the hair on the back of Tony’s head stand.

He can’t defend against this.

And yet, when the loud bang echoes in the hall, there’s no impact, no pain, no blood.

More bangs, more bullets and each and every one of them explode before ever reaching their target – into glittering, teal butterflies.

Not quite like the one still holding vigil to his left – these are quick to appear and quick to flutter back out of existence, serving their purpose in the instant.

That’s where Tony realizes the sudden influx of power even his muggle mind could feel in his surroundings wasn’t only coming from the mysterious man that came here to steal his baby spider.   

Mystery man abandons the Tommy gun, this time letting it hang on the strap around his shoulder in order to use both of his hands to shield himself away from huge magical force heading his way.

Sent by one extremely pissed off looking Stephen Strange.

Tony saw the man angry before – the glare he sent Thanos was almost like a secondary attack spell. But the cold fury he sees in those piercing, ever-changing eyes right now is on another level entirely.

“I see,” the struggling evil wizard grits out and before Tony can come in with another wave of attacks, the man is engulfed in dark, purple-ish cloud – disappearing.

For ten long seconds, silence settles in the hallway. They both stand there, each at the other end of it, staring at the spot where their foe stood the moment before.

The bleak emergency lighting blinks and shuts down as electricity is once again restored to this block of the Compound, lighting the hallway properly.

“ _I have regained full control, boss_ ,” FRIDAY startles him with the announcement but Tony doesn’t relax his posture until Strange lowers his arms and breathes out.

“Are you okay?” Strange sets into motion, taking long strides toward him and only then Tony notices the Cloak is around his shoulders, fluttering in the nonexistent breeze.

“Where’s Peter?” he blurts out, making the armor disintegrate.

“In the Sanctum. Got to him first, he’s fine…probably making Wong go crazy already. _Are you okay_?” he repeats, coming to a halt in front of him, eyes narrowed and intently staring Tony down.

“Wh…I’m fine!” he insists but it only makes Strange squint at him harder.

“Is that why you’re bloody all over?!” he barks but takes a sudden step back, looking at something on Tony’s left.

“Just a few scrapes and bruises, it’s nothing. Who was that guy?! Strange?” he prompts the sorcerer when he just continues to stare at…the butterfly.

“I’m…not sure. If he studied at Kamar-Taj, it wasn’t in recent years,” he responds, eyes still pinned on the innocent insect.

“Great…FRIDAY? Run recognition on him, chances are he’s got some criminal record somewhere for…torturing puppies. What?!” Tony barks at Strange and his continuous, blank stare. “Everyone else being freaked out by the damn butterfly is one thing but you too? Anything you wanna tell me, Doctor Wizard?”

He blinks, looking between Tony and the butterfly. “This happened before?”

“Wh…I told you it did.”

“You said it appeared for Peter.”

“And then it appeared for me…a couple times. Unexpected? Yes. Freaky? Not as much as an evil wizard overlord appearing in the middle of the Compound!” he rolls his eyes and once again lets the butterfly settle down on his palm. There’s something entirely calming about its presence, the warmth soothing against his skin. No need to admit that to the wizard but it’s kinda…nice.

Strange watches the scene with such a dumbstruck expression that Tony hopes Fri is taking pictures. “Uhm…anyway. Why is nobody around here?”

“Got a call to assemble about an hour ago, everyone got dispatched.”

“Huh. How…suspiciously convenient,” he frowns.

“Excuse me?”

“The HYDRA sorcerer chooses to attack the Compound when all the Avengers are away? You think that’s a coincidence?”

“No…it’s not,” Tony realizes, the haze of adrenalin finally giving way to reasoning.

“They knew the Avengers were gone and they knew Peter would be here under minimum protection – which is not me belittling your protective abilities, mind you,” he quickly adds. “This would however make it the best moment to make their move and they _knew_. “

The information is nothing if not highly disturbing. Such level of insight into the Avengers’ comings and goings in the hands of HYDRA? They didn’t have that even when half of SHIELD were their sleeper agents.

“There’s one thing they didn’t quite expect though,” Tony abandons the thought for now, instead focusing on the plus side.

“What?”

“You. The guy looked all kinds of not happy to see you.”

“Most evil wizards aren’t,” he gives him a tiny smirk, eyes still fleeting to the butterfly.

“Unless they look like seafood and enjoy torturous acupuncture.”

The chuckle Tony eventually echoes is clearly a surprise for both of them. Squidward was a walking cartoon but he was also damn scary and powerful…and Tony doesn’t often joke about anything Thanos related unless he’s making fun of Cable.

He can only blame it on the fittingly _estranged_ feeling of utter safety that the wizard’s presence forces into his always on edge, always freaked-out mind.

When did _that_ happen?!

“Well…he will be even less happy the next time he tries portalling inside the Compound. He might have tunneled through the wards this time but he won’t have any such luck trying to do so with me on the premises to block him away the instant he makes his move.”

“So…you’re staying?”

“Of course. I said I would…and the sooner is clearly the better. I will work on improving the wards – with your permission…and I _might_ have found something at Kamar-Taj.”

“Really?” Tony’s hope flares up at the positive sound of that.

“Tomorrow. Those wounds need cleaning, now.”

“They’re just scrapes!” Tony argues, rolling his eyes to make his point.

“ _Now_ ,” Strange repeats with a daring eyebrow.

“Your doctor mode is even more annoying than your wizard mode,” he says with as much sarcasm as he can because he really doesn’t mean a word of it.

“Oh you haven’t seen the half of it,” he shoots back with ease only he’s capable of when dealing with Tony’s wit.

Another thing he needs to get to the bottom of.

“Fine. I’ll go clean up, you go rescue Wong from Peter’s cuteness assault,” he commands, the butterfly disappearing as he moves his palm away.

He doesn’t miss the way Strange’s flicker to the event with visible interest. “It’s impossible to fight Wong with cuteness.”

“Uhuh. Tell that to Peter and his puppy eyes that managed to break even Agent Agent into giving up his badge to be played with.”

“Cuteness resistance is Wong’s hidden superpower, it’s no joke.”

“We’ll see about that,” Tony nods and makes a few hesitant steps toward his lab.

“I’ll be right back,” Strange returns the nod and waits until Tony rounds the corner before likely portalling into the Sanctum to bring the itsy bitsy back.

For some reason, the gesture is enough to calm his still adrenaline-rattled nerves and keep him moving along the quiet halls of the Compound without stumbling.

 _Safe_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Stephen settles in his new temporary home, teaches Peter a new word and maybe...possibly admits to himself what the butterflies really mean.
> 
> ...sooo, fluff? Or angst? Fluff? Angst? HURT? :3 *saw Endgame and still has to ask* *is probably a sadist*


End file.
